C section or natural

[Ellikopter]

Hi I'm due my little girl on 27th May. I have a 4 year old son and his birth was horrible, ended up with emergency c section after 30 plus hours in labour , failed forceps, stuck in pelvis. Heartbeat dipping cord around his neck. They have given me option of choosing how I want to give birth but I'm torn on which to try any suggestions will be appreciated

@Floralnomad - I could have written that x

Choices are vaginal or section. Both " natural". Just saying.

I recently had an EMCS and am thinking I'd go for an ELCS for my second. They used glue to seal my wound which is still amazing to me! I don't know if that helped my recovery but I only needed strong painkillers for 24 hours, then was only on paracetamol for 2 more days, & then I realised I didn't need any pain relief at all. I am quite sad about missing out on the whole labour & birth experience though!

I had an emergency section with dd1. With dd2 I opted for VBAC but ended up with an emergency section again. As a pp has said, they monitor you very closely if you have had a section previously, however I would also say that my recovery from the second operation took longer than the first, probably closer to a week than a day. Others have told me this is not the case generally with an elective section. At nearly 4, dd1 has not been a problem, except I have to remind her occasionally not to climb on me because of my scar. Looking back and knowing what I know, I think I would still have tried for VBAC, but if someone had told me elective section was the only option I would have been OK with that!

I just had an elective after having had an emergency with my 2.5 yo. It was great. Lovely, calm experience. I was only in hospital for one night - in retrospect I could have done with another night in an electric bed! It took me five days to be able to get in and out of bed comfortably, and for the first few days I had to get DH to help push me up into a sitting position. However, I wasn't in pain. My toddler understood that i couldn't pick him up and that he had to be careful around me so I am sure your 4 year old will be able to understand that!

Also my first baby was 8lbs 12 at 42 weeks. This one was 8lbs 15 at 39 weeks. Had I tried to go naturally and gone overdue again, he would have likely been around 10lbs 8oz - my midwife said I would never have got him out naturally and that she was really glad I had opted for an elective!

I'm sure it is lovely to have a natural birth and a quicker recovery but I wasn't prepared to have another panicked EMCS. I guess it's about whether you are willing to chance another EMCS if you want a natural birth? Good luck!

I was booked in for a c section after a horrific forceps first birth. My 2nd had other ideas and was on his way by the time they did the anaesthetic! Labour was 1.5hours in total! Id do it again in a heart beat it was a world of difference from my first experience and I was up and about almost instantly

BUT I still think I was right to ask for the section as they couldn't give me any guarantees and my recovery took 7months last time.

Is never do forceps again but honestly my second labour was over before I knew what was happening

I'm booked in for ELCS after my first birth was emergency due to brow presentation which was discovered after 20 hours of labour - so also technically stuck. Had a choice of VBAC or ELCS this time and have chosen c section as I found my first labour traumatic.

Brow presentation is rare and had four internals during labour before having a scan and consultant confirming presentation of head - no one really knew what was going on.

A scan at 34 weeks, for placenta which was covering cervix at 20 week scan, showed that placenta had moved but baby was brow presentation again! Sonographer said it could be the shape of my pelvis but this has never been checked or looked into by anyone, in fact no one seems to care. So personally I've gone for an elective as I can't go through another exhausting labour and risk another emergency c section. I have a 2 year old but have arranged for plenty of support which is much easier to do knowing the date of my section and would be much harder to do if I went for VBAC and ended up with an emergency c section.

Section, much more civilized way of giving birth. I recovered much more quickly after my elective CS than from my forceps delivery and was off painkillers by day 3 and driving at day 10.

OP your first birth sounds really scary.
I had a traumatic first birth with forceps. Everything went wrong very quickly and I had a lot of bad complications. I'm expecting my second and really hope I can have an ELCS agreed.
I get a bit wistful when I hear about nice vaginal deliveries, but I think that psychologically and physically a c-section would be best for me. I know recovery is going to be tough though.
Good luck with your decision.

The difficulty is that if you go for a VB, both extremes are a possibility. You could have a quick, easy delivery of the sort that's most conducive to a straightforward recovery, and this would almost certainly be easier on you than an ELCS. Or you could have an EMCS, instrumental with severe tearing, a very long labour and generally the sort of birth that's harder to recover from than an ELCS.

Personally I would consider my own risk factors too. You mention a narrow pelvis. There's also the question of how old are you, what do you weigh, do you want to have more children after this? The risk v benefit calculation looks different for every woman.

C-section. I was in a similar position to you last year. I have I kept being told that around 70 per cent of vbacs are successful but when I looked into this figure in more detail it became apparent that with a big baby / small pelvis, no history of giving birth naturally, the chances of an unassisted delivery are much lower. (the 75% figure includes people who have had at least one natural birth previously and even then the risk of intervention with forceps / ventouse is around 40%. ).

Are you getting growth scans?
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I had similar with DS and if I have another one I would 100% go via C section.