Caesarean = Failure? Article in the Times...

[SweetyDarling]

Times article about feelings of failure after ceasarean birth
Interesting comments and countering article as well.

I feel for the MNetters who have posted with feelings of loss etc following a section.

I was very fortunate to have two very positive experiences of sections. The first was at the end of 2 days of labour. My second was elective by ds was a footling breech, so would have been a section anyway.

Dd is now a wonderful 10 year old and ds a strapping lad of 7.

As far as I'm concerned I gave birth to them, al be it with lots of help. I have never felt any feelings of loss or regret over the way they arrived.

I've had 2 c/s, one emergency and one elective and certainly don't feel like a failure. I think that's because a) I was never hung up on a 'natural' birth and was always aware that c/s was a possibility, albeit one I wanted to avoid and b) I bf dd1 successfully and currently bfing 2 week old dd2 successfully so far.

Personally I think I would have felt a failure if I hadn't been able to bf (not saying anyone should feel that way, btw) that was much more emotionally important to me than the birth itself.

I think that the point someone else made in the thread is a valid one' Why do some women feel that their CS were so negative?'

And what can we do to make sure that this becomes less of a problem?

For me, I felt that I was made to feel that I was still involved in the birth of my babies, even if I did need a section. I was treated with great respect throught both sections, talked to as an adult she be. The staff explained what was happeneing and why at each stage. And in doing so, they made sure I didn't feel 'violated'

maybe we need to see an improvement in the was Csections are handled in the same way as VD have improved over the 1970's, shaved, stirup, enema experience.

I find it utterly weird that people get upset about the 'loss of control' with a caesarean. I found so-called natural labour the most disgusting, degrading, appalling thing that has ever happened to me - and I hope - ever will happen to me in my life.
I felt like some kind of animal, like a creature with one leg in an iron trap. Shocking, appalling waves of agony I could not stop just taking me over against my will - where is the 'control' in that? I was crying, calling out, and I found it totally humiliating and repulsive. I could hear other people screaming and shouting. I had to beg for help. I want never to be in that position for ANYTHING in my life.
My caesareans were, by contrast, civilised, humane, painless. I was utterly myself, able to make normal conversation, have normal thoughts, was utterly in control of myself - the important parts that make me, ME, - my brain, my personality - in labour I felt like a just a body, a thing.

Aloha, but that is where everyone is different, I must say, I am immensely greatful, that, even though with my 3. ds I ended up with a C-section I laboured...even though it was the most painful labour I had actually experienced....!
Labouring for me is part of Birth, I suppose I feel kind of philosophical about it...but then, I tend to cope well with the pain (even with ds3...so, I never felt out of control...during labour and my 2 natural/vaginal Births I only needed gas and air (and luckily it made me whoozy, but just a bit, and nohting else...), and the main reason for not wanting other painrelief was, that I didn't want to loose control.
However, I am sure that a C-section, that is planned, or where the people that care for you involve you, can be a very positive experience...just not one I had...

I had an elective c-section as ds was breech. I did not feel a failure at all, I was just glad that he arrived safely. I can understand why some people do feel this way though partly because of the attitude of others.
When I was on the maternity ward the woman next to me had a natural birth with no pain relief and loads of medical staff kept coming in and congratulating her and were saying that more woman should take a leaf out of her book as she was an inspiration . I'm sure she was but I didn't like the inference that women who have non-natural births have gone for the easy option.
At a postnatal yoga workshop, the yoga teacher expressed sympathy that I had a c-section and said that she knew of people who had homebirths when breechand that I should have demanded a natural birth! Now why would I have done that? Because of the position ds was in there was no way he could have born without having a c-section so why would I have wanted to endanger both our lives?

I actually find quite a few of the posts on this thread incredibly lacking in understanding and basically any kind of empathy or kindness. The idea that you give birth and they you should just get on with it, whatever happens, be grateful that you've got a healthy baby and shutup your whining about how traumatic it was. I've never actually seen this view so blatant and explicit - and its really offensive.

Childbirth is one of the biggest events in your life - however long it lasts and whatever happens, it's a huge, lifechanging occasion. I didnt' have a c-section, but did have 2 medicalised births. for a lot of women its the closest they've ever been to death - or it feels like that - certainly did for me. I had a rare reaction to the induction drug - and both of us were ill. My baby was in scbu for a week and i was in shock and all my memories of what happened were terrifying

. Afterwards the attitude that i should just be grateful and move on made it harder to come to terms with how shit i felt about the birth. It actually adds to the guilt because you feel like people are judging you as self indulgent and ungrateful (which now i see they are!)

Of course guilt isn't a feeling that women 'should' feel about their birth - but it's totally understandable to feel that way when things go wrong, not a sign of weakness or stupidity.

I had so little memory of what had happened, i had trauma counselling at the hospital where a midwife went over all the notes with me and tried to help me understand what happened when and why it had happened. I found that was the only thing that helped. Women should be given the time to come to terms with whatever their experience, not told to 'get a life'.

I think that it is very important for people to try to find out why it is that women can undergo the same basic experience, and yet feel so different about it. We need to ask ourselves what can be done to try to make sure that all women can view C sections in a positive way.

We need to look at the factors that make women feel in control during a section, and make sure that these are in place, wherever possible, when women have a section.

I also feel that it would be helpful to have sections discussed in anter natal classes in a more positive and 'empowered' light. Mt antinatal calsses were almost , 'and if you can't have the baby naturally, you'll have a section, take big knickers' That was about it. No womnder that many women feel stunned when the section is needed, and they go into it as unprepared as women did vaginal births in the 70s.

I agree, in a slightly distressingly slavish manner, with Martianbishop.

Got to add my bit.
Tried to last night but was so full of venom and anger, thought better of it.

After an awful CS (due to induction too early and being flat on my back) I wanted an ELCS, I did not want to go through all an induction entailed with no results.

It put me off of having another baby for 8 YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Once pregnant again I decided to do a spot of research on how to get an ELCS. Except something strange happened. All facts pointed towards a natural labour, and preferably one with minimal intervention. This meant a home birth.

I planned and planned this wonderful day. I bigged myself up, I was PROUD OF MYSELF for coming to my own conclusion and doing what was right for me and my baby. Im not a new age hippy - far from it. But I knew that for me and my baby this was right.

However at 42 weeks my babys heart rate showed signs of distress and I had an ELCS. Traumatised? No. Dissappointed? Yes. Feel a failure? Yes.

In fact I am sobbing as I type.

My baby was born healthy and happy, and it is so very important.

But its not ALL that is important.

My state of mind is important isnt it? Or is that just "Chattering" on too much?

I have not gone into sponaneous labour with any of my 3 children, and I feel that as a woman I cant even do the thing that I am supposed to do. I feel pathetic and useless.

If that doesnt fit in with what you feel. Tough shit.

They are my feelings. And dont you dare tell me how to feel.

I dont mean to sound aggressive, but this has affected me so much, and I really wish it hadnt. I wouldnt wish these feelings on anybody.

Aloha, thank you; you have put into words how my labour felt too. I felt exactly as you describe; the utter torture of the pain wiped any feeling of 'control' from me; my 'crash' cs was terrifying (until I was under the GA) but I certainly had along with the fear, the feeling that at least it was going to be over.

i had laboured constantly and agonisingly for 2 nights and 3 days; I know that ds wasn't going to come out naturally, I know that a hundred years ago ds and I would have died in labour. My CS felt like wresting just a bit of control from a physical situation that was literally killing me.

And I know that feeling as I did during labour does not mean I did not 'cope well with the pain'.

I tell you what I found so distressing - I'm profoundly deaf and had an emergency c section and I couldn't see OR hear what was going on during the c section...felt so shut off!! DH was lovely and provided as much commentary as poss but it was still really hard - all this hustle and bustle at my head with monitoring my heart etc and lots of action at the other end, but totally removed from all of it cos couldn't hear anything...didn't see DS as soon as he came out either. They lifted him for DH to see, but didn't pop him around the curtain for me.

I had a three day labour and only dilated 5cms despite them trying everything to get it going and then DS's heart rate dropped so a c section was the best option but I really think they need to do more to make women feel better about the decision to operate and in my case, take into consideration the disability aspect of it also! Luckily I had DH on side - bless him. He was so good - he's still traumatised by it all to this day though as was very hard on him as well as me -having to translate all what the mwives were saying etc - I wasn't able to lipread as effectively as I normally do...I wonder if anyone else's DH/DP is the same? He shudders when he talks about it

I don't think it is sections per sey that cause people trauma. My first was a planned home birth that ended up arriving two weeks early by section. My main feeling was shock! I didn't labour at all, and the section was not traumatic, but parts of the experience could have been (at times I felt very much treated like a piece of meat, with no dignity or respect at all). Second time I was induced and then ended up with an emergency c-section. It was a horrible experience, and probably the major contributor to my marriage later breaking down. Neither were the experience I wanted, and I do feel that my body just wasn't very interested in giving birth. But the failure I think is in our maternity systems. It is indeed not fair to give people the idea that they have any choice or control, and then not deliver on supporting women through labour. For most people a c-section is not a "choice" it is something they are told, after greater or shorter periods of pain and often at a time of fear that they must have. And then we wonder why they feel they have had a negative experience!

i absolutely agree Nooka...

shortage of midwives, lack of birth centres, lack of ante natal support...no wonder we are set up for a fall, as it were....

I agree with Martianbishop and Boco. Women who are distressed and have feelings of failure several years after C-Sections are not choosing to feel this way for the fun of it, or because they are not sufficiently grateful for a healthy child, and deserve sympathy and support, not derision from those fortunate enough to feel content with their birth experience.

I also have to add that being induced because your baby doesnt pop out bang on 40 weeks (which is not actually normal gestation time according to WHO) will increase your chances of a CS. As will being monitored flat on your back for hours and hours on end.

And lets not forget that when your fight or flight kicks in because you are in a flood lit room with strangers doing stuff to you, where strangers are screaming in the next room...it hardly makes you feel relaxed and ready to give birth....which as you've guessed it....results in CS.

And if you labour a bit too long ie 4 hours and still 2cms dilated, then lets pump you full of unnatural drugs and get you going (which they dont tell you can make you go a bit too fast and....you guessed it CS!!!) What if you suddenly (as is common) dilate the final 8 cms in a couple of hours, it was just your baby adjusting naturally, getting ready.

I hate the fact that Doctors just toddle in say "No you silly woman - you cant do it, so we will do it for you".

Not all technical terms here but Im on a roll and cant be bothered to look up stats, but feel free to Google stats yourself as i did.

Mainlymainday, I agree with you that we need to find ways to help women come to terms with what has happened to them if they feel traumatised/guilty/whatever. I also think that just accepting those feelings at the time and not trying to deny them for other people's benefit is a great help. Like you Broco, I found that going through my notes with the consultant helped me enormously.

What made my first few weeks even more traumatic than they already were was other people's constant attempts to tell me that everything I had been through was worth it because I had DS and didn't I just feel so much love for him.

Well I didn't feel that DS being 3 weeks late, then 3 days of labour, rupture of the membranes that caused my uterus to go into agonising hyperdrive, failed epidural, spinal with too much drug administered so that I was unconscious for 45 minutes and then unable to feel to push, then still having to push for 90 minutes, ventouse, legs in stirrups for 2 and a half hours causing major nerve damage so I couldn't walk properly or control my bowels, bastard anaethetist telling me I was a wimp, DS unable to breastfeed, infected episiotomy, catheter as my bits were too swollen for me to urinate, puerperal fever nearly killing me, then another infection requiring an operation, and in total 3 weeks in hospital - was worth it. I didn't love DS on sight and I cried every day for 3 weeks. I'm sorry if that offends anyone but I felt guilty that I had not been able to give birth to him 'properly'. It mattered to me.

Thank God I don't feel like that now. I love my DS with all my heart and the trauma of what happened to me is fading. But if only people had listened to me at the time instead of telling me what I ought to be feeling, I might have got over it more quickly.

I agree with martianbishop and I agree with motherinferior agreeing with martianbishop.

My ante natal class barely covered CS and I think it would help if people knew this might happen and really focused on it as a possibility.

My observation is that an incredibly large number of women find birth traumatic - either because it ends in emergency cs or because the vaginal birth is so overwhelming that they don't know what to do with themselves (I thought Aloha put it very eloquently).

I'm not saying trauma is good or right but it does seem that very few women end up with the dream birth with the birthing pool and the favourite song on the cd player. So trauma becomes the norm and frankly, who wouldn't be traumatised when you don't get the lovely water birth you requested in your birth plan but you do get the panic and everyone trying to haul the baby out of you and the pain and the shock.

It's difficult to tell the truth about birth without scaring women away from trying for the "best" outcome but I do think more honesty about how things can go would help to dispel these feelings of failure.

Maybe I was just lucky (or unlucky depending on your pov) but EVERYONE I knew had had a traumatic birth of some description or other, from my sister's third degree tears to my friend's elective cs to assist child known to be carrying major birth defects to my friend who attempted home birth and had to be rushed in for an emergency cs due to cord issues.

For these reasons, I never expected birth to be anything other than awful, bordering on horrific. And I was just mindful of the millions of women who have died through history just because it is so very tough.

Just some of the reasons why I chose cs and can only encourage anyone who feels bad about it to look at history and thank god they gave birth in the 21st century.

ps, mainlymayday speaking - new name, same poster.

Agree with Martianbishop and Lulumama (again!)

We need to educate people far more during ante-natal classes as to the realities, rather than vagueries. It's 2007 after all and people expect to be told things as they are rather than the 1950's 'get on with it dear' attitude until all of a sudden it's an out of control panic 'emergency' situation. And more midwife-led centres would be far better than consultant-led hospital wings but that won't become a reality until there are more female consultants than males??

IF I ever have to have a CS again, it will be in my birth plan that I wish it to be more like this

Prof Nick Fisk is such a gentle seeming man and I love the fact he is doing something about the harsh way CS is carried out, generally.

The placenta is my baby's life line, it will not be cut until the placenta has been removed and the cord has stopped pulsating. Baby will be placed on my chest for skin to skin and resusitation can be performed there if need be whilst my baby still has some benefit of being connected to me.

As for the ante-natal classes mentioned in earlier posts, they are as much use as a chocolate fireguard! The only thing they are good for is making friends! You can't have too many friends!

I think there is a lot that can be done to help reduce the trauma some women experience during both vaginal and caesarean birth.

The hospital i gave birth at is pioneering what it calls 'natural caesareans', with the focus on taking it more slowly and gently (for obvious reasons this is being done only for elective cs, though I should think it would also work for many emergencies though clearly not crash sections). The lights are dimmed, with just a spotlight over the abdomen, the baby's head is lifted out slowly and allowed to acclimatise before the body is lifted out and straight onto the mother's skin. The screen is kept down so mother can watch throughout, and the surgeon keeps up a running commentary.

I think this would feel a lot less shocking than being wheeled into a brightly-lit theatre after 30 hours in labour, surrounded by people in masks shouting at each other, and repeatedly told, "Don't panic!" in a very panic-inducing way.

Great minds, Doulaklaw!

I have to say that Nick Fisk was my consultant and he is NOT great at bedside manner, but good for him for doing this. (I think the midwives he works with should be taking more credit for this, by the way.)

Hi Hester! Well I suppose he wouldn't have got where he was today without some good mw at his side!

He certainly seemed a very nice person when we saw him BRIEFLY on Channel 5's Birth Night a few months back, very soft spoken.

As soooooo many emCS are not true crash emergencies I can see no reason why this method should not become more common place. In fact, as I said before, resussitation might be best done at the mother's side while baby still has her for a life line. When baby is compromised is it not MADNESS to further compromise him/her by cutting the cord?

And as research shows that removing baby from mother during first hour of life is detrimental to baby why do they still insist on doing that? Mum will be calmer if she can see baby and know what is happening to it and baby will have reassurance of mum's voice at this traumatic time.

I still can't understand how my baby could have APGAR scores of 9 and 9 at birth if he was so compromised and needed a CS.... shakes head sadly, very confused