Was doctor right?

[Russell19]

I have had my baby now so it is kind of irrelevant but just out of interest....

I had a long labour....42 hours back to back baby. I specified no epidural, forceps or c section in my birth plan. I didn't really want any intervention.

After about 40 hours the doctor came in and said that I may need to have an epidural and forceps or a c section. I was 8cm dilated.

The thing I am confused about is that she said if I had a csection I would be put asleep under GA.

Was she just trying to scare me or would there have been a reason for this? I was too much in pain to ask. I just kept saying it wasn't what I wanted. Baby was born 2 hours later with no intervention.

Tried to find out from Google why this may have been and can't find anything....

If an emergency it's generally GA, if they have more time then spinal, epidural if you've already got one.

So if they were taking you for a forceps attempt, then CS depending on how things look, epidural might be what they suggest. If you waited and things got problematic/worse then CS under GA because at that point it would be more urgent.

I don't know if that helps in your case.

Thanks! Not sure she meant because it was urgent because she was talking about it being in the next few hours. Maybe she meant because I was saying I didn't want the epidural?

If you ended up going for a c sec, would probably have been done under GA because theres less time to wait around where baby could have ended up further down the birth canal, and makes csections more awkward.

I dont know your drs reasoning, but that would be my guess!

@purplepolo she did say something about the birth canal! Sorry to sound dumb but why does that make things more awkward? Xx

Not entirely sure myself, i remember hearing about it on a birth programme. After a quick google looks like that they would have to cut down through the uterus and the cervix X

I think it’s usually a time thing.

In an emergency situation a GA is quicker than doing an epidural.

If baby is too far out they won't do a CS because baby would need pushed back up which would be dangerous, or significantly more surgery as pp said. There are exceptions, but generally once baby is in the birth canal an assisted delivery is less risky than CS, so if CS was necessary then they would want it done quickly before it was too late. It's why some women are taken to theatre before they decide whether to try for forceps or CS.