Really upset at the natural child birth brigade...

[Huncamuncaa]

Sorry everyone.... need to vent...

I had a baby almost 5 years ago. I did the NCT course and armed myself with all the facts. I took in everything they said. I wanted a calm, natural birth.

It didn't work out that way. My baby was delivered by ventouse. I had severe bruising and scaring which took months to heal. Walking was painful for weeks. After the birth, the bruising prevented me from sitting down for days.

I was told that the heart rate had dropped due to the cord being round the baby's neck, hence the way he was delivered that way. I had been a bit out of it at the time on painkillers. I have never talked about the birth much and nor has my husband. It was traumatic but we survived it.

The NCT reunion came round and it turned out that all of us had had to have some sort of intervention at birth, except for the girl who had wanted a home birth. Her baby sailed into this world. It was blissful. The NCT leader looked quite smug. Her message that 'if you want a natural birth and remain calm, it will happen,' was ringing true. I told her about my birth and how I had had to have the baby born quickly because they cord was causing his heart rate to drop. She told me this was most unlikely, many babies are born this way (I know that this is true). She said it was more likely that my birth had been 'over medicalised'. Apparently when you give birth in hospital, doctors frequently don't give first time mums the time they need to give birth. She suggested that I had been very anxious and this has reduced my ability to push. The woman basically changed my understanding of my own birth. For the last 4 and a bit years I have believed that if I had breathed deeper, been more in tune with my body or had dimmer lights I would have not had six months of physical discomfort due to scarring from my episiotomy. My birth would have felt joyful not traumatic.

So I am pregnant again. Did a different (but similar) antenatal course, desperate for that joyful birth. Told the group about my first birth. Was told again, it was unlikely to have been an actual emergency. This time the meditation will get me through. Childbirth will be a dream.

Today I finally spoke to my mum (a doctor) who had been in the delivery suite at my first birth. She filled me in. She was really shocked that my understanding was that my birth had been 'unnecessarily medicalised'. She told me that my baby's heart rate dropped critically low and that, yes, I was in that very small minority of cases where the cord is wrapped in such a way that it affects the heart rate and could have caused a still birth. I knew that my son had been taken off me but didn't actually realise he was being resuscitated while I was stitched up. My mum had been very concerned. My bruising was caused by him being born with both his hands next to his head. (There isn't anything they could have done to prevent this position, not even a home birth amongst scented candles). I was unlucky with the episiotomy scarring, but the quick delivery saved the life of my baby.

My natural birth prevented my child from being still born. How was I so easily brain washed and made to feel inadequate by these people, even after almost five years?! I do believe that being calm, meditation and the rest of it helps but how can someone, who wasn't there and hasn't seen my notes feel like it's OK to educate me on what happened and why it all went wrong?!

NCT practioners are not volunteers although lots do work on a voluntary basis. They are trained at university level in delivering either antenatal education, postnatal courses or being a breastfeeding counsellor. Sometimes more than one specialty. It takes 2 years full time these days I believe and is the probably the most thorough training in the field in the UK. After all I have seen training programs for antenatal class facilitators which are a few days .

The majority are not medically trained (there is no need to be). They are trained specifically not to give advice but to deliver evidence based information and help clients ask questions. Sometimes that does involve asking questions of medical professionals to help weigh up options but equally the decision to go along with whatever course of action a medical professional advises is a decision of its own which no practitioner should be judging. No one should be advising clients to ignore medical advice in an emergency and I would be staggered if a NCT practitioner did that - it would be foolhardy to their position for a start. I would urge anyone who feels that they have a complaint about something an NCT practitioner has said to them either during a course or after birth to actually complain the NCT. The NCT investigate all complaints throughly and of course do ask the practitioner for their version of events too.

Luckily my experience on Nct was very different. Half of us EMCS for various reasons - looking back I do think more midwife support would have resulted in a different outcome. My NCT course leader actively encouraged me consider formula feeding when breast feeding wasn’t working for us,

My second birth was less ‘medicalised’. I was cut and baby’s heart rated dropped dangerously low and I had placenta removal under general anaesthetic and lost 1.5 litres of blood. Recovery for the second birth is much easier.

I think birth one upmanship is awful. Of course everyone wants an ‘easy’, safe birth with a quick recovery. I do think the nhs is very stretched and more midwives could make a difference but emergencies can and will happen in birth. Mothers who have a difficult time deserve empathy and support not misogynistic bullshit. Women should be supporting women.

OP a Birth reflections session can help you understand what happened at your birth.

Our Nct course leader was a qualified midwife.

Are NCT leaders or whatever they're called actually medical professionals?

Or are they just people masquerading as such?

Weird how so many women trust these people over an ob/gyn consultant with years of experience.

Oops, just seen hormones response, sorry!

I honestly do think that in 50 year's time all Western births will be via section - it's so much safer for mum and baby.

Hello OP
I hope your next birth is less traumatic, I really do, and I have heard from some on here that a 'better' birth has helped them with closure wrt the first.
But having done it three times I can say this was not the case for me - like you, I had ventouse and episiotomy. Meconium in waters/foetal distress. Trauma.
I was told by many that 2nd births would be quicker and after getting through transition would feel urge to push.
This did not happen in my case - I ended up begging for an epidural which only half took then requesting a ventouse as at least that was familiar to me.
Natural birthers insisted that interventions were due to the epidural - had I just held on longer then bingo - urge to push, ring of fire, happy endorphins, hurrah.

So for DC3 I gritted my teeth. It was the worst of the lot. Still no urge to push just agony. Pushed out child badly and ended up tearing myself a new arsehole. Told if I didn't breathe while pushing my child was going to be starved of oxygen. Am now incontinent. Oh and no fucking endorphins. Not faster birth or easier.

What have I learnt from this? if it hurts get pain relief. Every single time.
A 2nd ventouse was actually better than a natural birth in my case.
Pushing baby 3 out made no difference to me mentally, it wrecked me.

Do what feels right for you at the time. Hypnobirthing and meditation do not work for all of us

“They are trained at university level in delivering either antenatal education, postnatal courses or being a breastfeeding counsellor.”

What does this mean, to university level? I don’t believe the above are subjects you can gain a degree in?

I think the NHS does lean towards intervention, and that with the benefit of hindsight perhaps some interventions weren't strictly necessary (not saying this was the case for you OP).

But we can't have it both ways. The alternative to this "over cautious" approach is taking more risks and not intervening when it may be necessary. Which would ultimately be ok in many cases but for an unlucky group would result in more stillbirths and other terrible outcomes. I doubt that's what many people want.

Obviously the ideal is a happy medium where intervention only happens when truly needed. But birth is complex and unpredictable and medical staff are human not all-knowing gods. So faced with an uncertain situation it is about taking the least worst risk.

It's the same with inductions vs monitoring. In an ideal world I'd prefer monitoring but my local NHS hospital is so understaffed and under resourced I don't know if I would have the confidence that it would happen properly. So I'm not sure it's a risk I would be willing to take.

I honestly do think that in 50 year's time all Western births will be via section - it's so much safer for mum and baby.

I have heard people say this but evidence doesn't back this up; outcomes are slightly better for babies but not for mothers. But again it's about the overall balance of risk and what is most important to an individual.

Personally I would accept a section if the baby or I were at risk but I wouldn't choose it otherwise. Obviously other women would feel differently. I think saying that all women will/should give birth via a certain method is wrong whether the method is an unmedicalised free birth in the forest or a c section.

Passthecherrycoke - yes you can go on to do a full degree of you want to take it that far. The course is through the University of Worcester. www.nct.org.uk/get-involved/nct-training/our-training-course/foundation-degree-birth-and-beyond

There is a lot of spin on this thread. People being asked at the first session to introduce themselves and and say why they didn't want a home birth??? Really? That would be bonkers. Or were they asked to say where they were planning to have their baby and why?

Oh I see. The NCT set up a qualification with a uni. I thought it was supposed to be part of a breastfeeding degree or something 🤣

My SIL is a midwife. From my understanding, the way they think about the baby's heartbeat has changed in recent years. Like really recent. My SIL said something like "babies that we used to section, we wait and see now and they're usually fine".

I remember getting to the pushing bit and baby's heart rate was dipping but it came straight back up again. Midwife wasnt worried. At one stage, it stayed down and she got a bit forceful about me pushing as much as I can. Before that, she just told me to push when I feel the urge to and don't worry about doing it with every contraction.

We do need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. The NCT started as a radical organisation that advocated for women and babies at a time when the whole process of child birth was completely medicalised and largely in the control of men. Women were frequently strapped to beds, their legs in stirrups. Episiotomies were routine, and there was no choice or even input in what drugs were given.
While I am sure that some groups have gone too far over to the the lentil weaving side, there is also a lot of misinformation and mythology about what goes on. Things said jokes or satire are taken as fact. Sometimes people come away from meetings feeling that suggestions have been presented as instructions. There are crap NCT people- but there are also wonderful ones. And at a time when women’s rights in general and reproductive rights in particular seem to be under threat, we need to be careful not to let go of our hard win freedoms. The idea of all births being by Caesarian, for example, fills me with horror.

They do that @Kewlwife. I don’t know about OP but my second baby had episodes of fetal bradycardia for over 7 hours before the section was called

Sorry meant to add I believe the test is whether the heart recovers between contractions. My first baby’s heart was recovering slowly, erratically, and finally, hasn’t come back up at all. Even then I was given a couple of hours to have the opportunity to push until it got serious. They don’t just whip out a baby as soon as it’s heart rate drops.

My NCT class was nothing like this either. Sure, there was lots on calmness and dim lighting helping - but there was also a strong sense of “or things might not go to plan, and if so hooray for modern medicine”. The bit on C sections was entirely positive. The only “natural” bit there was that locally they would only give you post-section skin-to-skin if you asked - so do ask.

Those NCT groups were being judgy- however...

YOU didn't fully know what happened either, so you weren't in a position to set them straight. If you did, then nothing in the world would have made you feel bad about it.
I had two dreamy births ( natural, water etc). One was very long, but eventually ok.
Even without any explicit trauma, I think childbirth is shocking, and ( back when i did it) there wasn't any sort of ' debrief' after.

I guess what I'm saying is that you needed more information. The drs/ midwives should have talked to you about it, to help defray the trauma.
But also- why did it take 5 years to talk to your mum about it?

( not blaming btw, just cuious)

Also- i wasn't boasting, merely saying that even an incident free delivery could feel traumatic

It's so hard isn't it, there's so much emotion surrounding birth. People defending their choices, their opinions, and also generalizing when the range of experiences in birth is so wide.

I was open to the calming techniques, went through 48hr of induction then on the drip for 8 hours on gas and air before taking the pethadine (sp), which just gave me a 4hr rest and halted everything. Had an epidural after a while and despite pushing etc. had to resort to emcs due to foetal distress. 24 hours of established labour later. No amount of hypnobirthing was going to help us, i don't regret it as i felt empowered and informed the whole time and think the doctors made the right decision. Had i felt disempowered or forced into certain procedures etc i would really have struggled afterwards i think.

I'm 31w with baby 2 and have heard all the stories about the second coming faster and more smoothly, but i'm not convinced! I really hope your second birth goes well, and by that i mean i hope it ends up with a beautiful healthy baby and mother - it really is all that matters.

Haven't rtft, but you poor thing! This attitude of natural, unassisted birth being 1) the best and 2) achievable for all is so insidious! I really don't understand why anyone would tell you after the fact you had been railroaded into it. You have a healthy baby, that really is all that matters. And labour is brutal. FWIW, I had an ELCS as DS was breech. I struggled for ages with the fact I hadn't experienced labour, even though I knew it was the right choice. It doesn't help if other people stick their oar in (notably: "Ooh, giving birth without pain" from someone who doesn't have kids and has never had surgery)

I had a completely unnatural medicalised c-section birth. It was great! I had zero pain and my lady bits are fully intact. I feel absolutely no shame in taking advantage of modern scientific developments and doctors who have spent decades honing their skills. I’m lucky to live in a time and place where this level of care is possible. It seems bizarre to me that anyone would not take advantage of all the modern conveniences and technologies afforded to them.

The people who are pushing the “natural birth” mantra should be shot. Dying in childbirth or suffering long term damage is natural and not something to be aspired to. It’s lovely when it all goes swimmingly, but when it doesn’t we now have the technology to save lives. Why should anyone feel bad about that?

“The people who are pushing the “natural birth” mantra should be shot.“

Surely it depends what you mean by “pushing”? Because I know for a fact that if I talked about a “natural” (hate that word” birth in the glowing terms you talk about your Caesarian I would be pilloried......But surely you are “pushing” medicalisation?

I’ve had 7 water births with either nothing or just gas and air. 2 were at home. So your nct teacher would probably love me lol.

However, it’s just luck. The first baby I had I didn’t read anything about birth, I just went to hospital and thought what will be will be, and I screamed the bloody place down! So I wasn’t calm at all, but I still gave birth to my first baby in two and a half hours start to finish.

Some people’s bodies are really good at giving birth whether they are calm and in a darkened room with whale music or panicking on the side of a road.

Some people’s arent quite as good and they need help, thanks god we’ve got it because a long time ago those women and their babies would have died.

You can do all the breathing and meditating you like but your body will work the way it works. There’s no shame in needing medical help to get your baby out.

Also I find these things are a big deal when your children are tiny but no ones asks you what your 12 years olds birth was like! ( or if they were breastfed!)