If you had a traumatic first birth and went on to have another baby

[Buddytheelf85]

I had a pretty traumatic birth nearly 8 weeks ago, largely due to poor care. I’m still recovering, both physically and mentally.

I know it’s very early days, but right now I can’t ever imagine going through pregnancy and childbirth again. I always wanted two children. My DH does too. But right now it feels like something I could just never do. I can’t imagine the anxiety I’d feel in pregnancy about the birth.

If you went on to have another child, how did you manage it? Did the trauma of the first birth just fade with time? Or did you take specific steps to deal with it? How did the first birth affect you during your second pregnancy and how did you deal with it?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

First birth was an emergency c section and my baby (now 9) was brain injured and needing extra care. Massively traumatic to me and baby. I don't go there mentally very often. Nevertheless I also have a 4 yo adorable DS. Planned c section, multiple checks, closely monitored and consultant led unit. Totally different experience.

Dont go into a second birth unless you get the best care and all eventualities are covered. I also needed counselling to come to terms with the first birth. I'd also leave long enough for the memory to fade a bit.

First birth was a pile of shite. Utterly traumatising.

Took me 15 years to have another, I did a hypnobirthing course which massively helped with my anxiety.

My second birth was 7 months ago and a whole different ball game. Still hurt like fuck but was manageable. Recovery was fine.

Just don’t think about it right now as it’s too soon- your mind/ body aren’t yet healed and it is too raw.

My birth wasn’t terribly traumatic. But was long and DD was back to back. I remember during those first few months I would shudder thinking about the contractions. It took me over 6 months to feel like my body was back to normal(ish)- switches healing, settling into breastfeeding etc.

15 months on birth and pregnancy wouldn’t bother my in the slightest. A newborn baby/ toddler however puts me right off!

Congratulations and just enjoy your little one for now.

I had a traumatic 4th birth with long term complications for both me and ds. Accidentally got pregnant while dh was waiting for a vasectomy. 5th birth was worse tbh and I felt that my previous trauma was mostly brushed aside. At one point I was on the antenatal ward and my heart rate was going through the roof whenever the Drs did their ward round.

I would give yourself some time and when you are ready ask for a debrief of your birth (your gp can refer you). As part of that you can ask about a plan for if you decide to have another baby.

DC1's birth was absolutely horrendous. I still have flashbacks (should have tried to get counselling, but it wasn't mentioned then).

I still went on to give birth a second time exactly two years later, by ELCS, as I didn't want to have only one child. It was the prospect of ELCS that made it bearable for me.

Dc1's arrival was horrific, ended up hallucinating on the operating table, had flashbacks to a previous traumatic event and then a pyschotic break afterwards. Dh had to work from home for the first six months because he was terrified I'd kill myself/dc1. It was very stressful and very frightening for both of us.

I got pregnant again when dc1 was 2 and a half. It had it's scary moments but as an only child myself, I was sure I'd regret not trying for another more than facing another horrific experience. I ended up with another emcs but it was a million miles away from dc1's arrival and was actually extremely positive.

My consultant the second time was amazing. I did have some counselling for various things and I'm still under the adult mental health team nearly 5 years later but I think time helped.

Very traumatic 1st birth resulting in me going slightly mad! Ended up having counselling for a year afterwards. Vowed never to repeat the experience but after 10 years took the plunge and absolutely made the right choice.
You will feel better in time. Go speak to your GP.

I changed hospitals and had a much more positive experience from the pregnancy to the Labour to the recovery.

I had a much bigger baby (almost 11lb) but just felt so supported to and managed to get him out with just a small tear.

There were complications after the birth with me and the doctor was amazing and realised straight away before it became a bigger issue.

I was terrified of having a second child after my bad first experience but felt so good about it this time that I'd happily do it again tomorrow.

First birth I nearly died ... second birth was a dream ... it was such a dream I didn't have any pain relief. X

I had an independent midwife. Couldn't have done it without. Second birth was in no way straightforward but left me completelu untraumatised due to the level of care. You'll be ok. I promise. It doesn't feel like it now but you will x

ELCS

I am being serious. I really wanted my child to have a sibling and that desire over rode my fears after a year or two. But the elcs allowed me not to fully have to face my fears and I’m grateful to it.

Honestly though, it is not a thing to get tied up about now. Just look after you and the baby and see how you feel in a few years. There’s truly no rush to even start thinking about it!

I had a 4th degree tear which resulted in the loss of control of my bowel for some time and I couldn't control wind for a long time.

The trauma faded. Second time round I had an ELCS and it was a completely different, calm experience.

Depending on your traumatic 1st birth I think you can ask for a ELCS if you decide to have another.

But agree with others, take your time to process this birth and ask for a debrief with the midwives / hospital.

Don't worry about another child right now, focus on yourself and your recovery, which will get easier. My first birth left me fighting PTSD for 18 months until I finally went onto medication after a GP finally understood what I had been through (all others beforehand just wanted to diagnose me with PND which I knew I didn't have). 6 months on meds and I was a different person.

My second DD was born 3 years 2 months after my first. When I fell pregnant again I was in a different headspace, I was more confident about my choices in pregnancy and birth and had a wonderful midwife who knew my history and we chatted at every appointment about the birth, my emotions, and anxiety I was having. I went on to have a wonderful birth in a midwife led unit, in the pool and not even any stitches. Only has and air right at the end. I felt prepared in a sense of knowing anything could happen, and I think that made me calmer and able to use hypnobirthing techniques etc. The birth made me feel as though my healing had come full circle.

Can I just say - you can and will recover. Keep talking, don't bottle it up. I knew nothing about birth trauma and thought something was wrong with me when I realised how traumatised I was. I believe bottling up my feelings because I felt the birth shouldn't matter prolonged my PTSD. You aren't alone

1st birth took nearly a year to recover from physically (for me, ds1 was fine)

I opted for a ELCS 2nd time, medical staff where fully on board with this and didn't question me. I had a few wobbles when telling my story but even the midwives said a ELCS was a good idea

I went into spontaneous labour 2 weeks before my section date, I still wanted my section so was rushed to theatre and the medical team where still supportive.... But ds2 had other ideas and popped out after 1 hour and 30 mins of labour before they had a chance! It was a piece of piss quite frankly (I was up and about as normal that day!) and a very healing experience!

Absolutely agree about keeping talking. I have never talked about my first birth, other than on MN. I am sure this has contributed to the fact that I haven't 'got over it', despite the fact that DC1 is now 18. At the time, I was completely shellshocked, but even then - and it's not that long ago - there was very much a sense that you didn't talk about traumatic events: you just had to crack on and put it behind you. It doesn't work.

I had 5 years gap. I thought I’d try again naturally, even though I was swallowing my fear everyday. I laboured for days and needed an emergency c section, which I had to fight tooth and nail to get, in my sleep deprived state and in the height of pain.

Then I was unexpectedly pregnant again and knew it was ELC or no baby as under no circumstance would I ever nearly die a third time.

And it was lovely! Much recommended!

@Buddytheelf85

Just wanted to say I am in the same boat as you. Currently 7 weeks pp and still traumatised about my birth experience.

I went into hospital in agony, they said I was severely dehydrated so admitted me and started pumping fluids in. I vomited uncontrollably for 3 days, was in and out of consciousness, disorientated, confused and I felt like I was dying.

3rd day they realised I had Sepsis which had caused acidosis of the blood and my baby was delivered by emergency c section under general anaesthetic. Absolutely horrific, he was born really unwell and underwent a lot of treatment in NICU and we eventually came home 11 days after the birth. Needing lots of follow on appointments to check his brain development going forward, so the ordeal isn’t even over yet!

Whilst the birth experience and recovery were dreadful, I feel good again now, almost back to normal but also can’t shake the horrid feeling of how I would cope if I ever had another baby.

I hope with time and maybe some counselling etc I would be able to have another, but at the moment the thought gives me awful anxiety and panic.

I think we need to give ourselves a break and some time to recover fully, 8 weeks isn’t long at all! However my GP did say most hospitals will organise a review of what happened during your birth, but this needs to be a referral, so I presume you would need to tell your GP it is making you anxious and causing you issues, they then request this for you. Hope this helps.

Hope you’re doing well after your experience x

My mum was clearly traumatised by my birth. I've been hearing about it for 40 odd years. She's lighthearted but she never talks about my siblings only me.

My first was traumatising. Back to back. Bursting at seams hospital - those dates they later turned women away and made the press. I was left for 24 hours and then they panicked and luckily I got away with ventouse. It could have been worse.

I had some gyne stuff done recently. Unpleasant entirely. Three people in the room all massively exclaimed at my very high pain threshold. I guess that's related to my first birth !

I did have another. I was freaking out no doubt about it. I didn't enjoy the pregnancy UNTIL they found out at 30 weeks baby was breech. I knew I would have a section and all my anxiousness vanished.

My point to you is you don't have to go through it again. Have a section for your mental health !

After my son’s extremely traumatic birth I swore I would need to have amnesia before I went through all that again. He is now 17 months and we are expecting his little sister any day now! (Not by accident). In some ways I think my eagerness to have another baby was partly to try and do things “properly” this time and hopefully we will!

Congratulations on your new baby and best of luck with your future pregnancy!

I honestly think as women we cope with so much, that we have a natural sense of endurance. If that makes any sense at all ! I was terrified of the thought of giving birth, and unfortunately my midwife had the belief that birth should be natural. An idea she kept to herself until I was begging for pain relief after 20 hours of labor. She finally organized an epidural but kept fiddling with it and I had no idea why I was in so much pain. My poor baby became distressed and I ended up with feet in stirrups and her hauling out my baby with paddles. I was torn very badly and my baby was whisked away to be suctioned out as she’d swallowed stuff in her panic. I was severely traumatized by the whole experience, found it difficult to walk up right for weeks and was tearful. Two years later we decided we needed a sibling for her so ended up making an appointment at the hospital to go over my birthing notes, only to discover that the midwife had turned the epidural down below the starting point. This particular midwife left our city soon after the birth so we never addressed it at the time. I was so grateful to the person at the hospital who explained why the epidural didn’t work, as it gave me the courage to have another baby 😊

I had probably one of the only traumatic planned c sections (I'm joking obviously but everyone else seems to have great experiences of them). DD is my first baby. It took them 25mins to do the spinal including hitting a nerve and the midwife was crap - being so neglectful that DD nearly died. I wasnt supported to see her in special care and was left to bleed through my gown and bedding for a day. The night staff were horrified and fantastic but I have felt deeply traumatised by it all with PND and PNA. You can contact Your hospital PALS for a debrief which I found helpful to work out where exactly things had gone so wrong. I have also had specialist birth trauma counselling which has helped. Time and seeing DD get better and start thriving helped to. I would hope that maybe in a year or 2 I'll brave a sibling for DD but I would have a private midwife/doula to help and another planned section.

My ds birth was awful. I had pre eclampsia and i had to be induced. It took a long time of and because he was so big I couldn't push him out without really tearing. They cut me instead, they opened the scissors and began cutting. One midwife said to the other, these scissors are not sharp enough, first midwife says there is no time to swap them. They proceeded to hack away at me then ds was born. I was ages being stitched, i had muscle, tissue and skin stitches and have been left with a very thick scar. I was in hospital for days and struggled to walk around etc when I got home. Two years later I had my dd and her birth was much easier.

Thank you so much for all your replies! I’m really sorry to hear about your traumatic births but glad to hear that many of you were able to give your children siblings.

A few of you have mentioned ELCS. Right now I feel that’s the only way I could consider giving birth again. I’m hopeful I would be given one without too much opposition in the circumstances, but who knows? I don’t think I could face getting pregnant again and then fighting for a section, that would cause me so much anxiety.

A few of you have mentioned a debrief. It actually said on my discharge notes that I should have a consultant debrief, but that’s never materialised. But I’m sceptical about how much a debrief would help. Going back to the hospital and reliving the whole ordeal sounds horrendous - what I really want is to forget it! Maybe it will help in time? I suppose it might help deal with some of the anger I have towards the midwives and doctors who treated me.

I know 8 weeks is such early days!! In part it’s that other people - including GPs etc - seem to expect you to be back to normal by
8 weeks, but I’m still a million miles from normal in body and mind.

My first birth left me fighting PTSD for 18 months until I finally went onto medication after a GP finally understood what I had been through (all others beforehand just wanted to diagnose me with PND which I knew I didn't have).

Omg, yes! I’ve spoken to my GP who was very much like ‘post natal depression, very common’. But I don’t have PND, I know I don’t. I’m angry and traumatised and injured and in pain and worried about the future, but I’m not depressed. It actually makes me really cross that women like us are told we have PND when what we actually have is a perfectly normal reaction to our experiences. I feel like telling a woman who’s had a traumatic birth that she’s got PND is like punching her in the face then telling her she must have PMS if she gets upset!

Thank you again for your replies and thoughts.

I don’t think I could face getting pregnant again and then fighting for a section, that would cause me so much anxiety.

Ask your GP if you could be referred to speak to a consultant obstretrician to discuss mode of birth before you are pregnant.

I was "lucky" in that the flashbacks I had during dc1's arrival were to something non birth related so I got a diagnosis of ptsd really quickly but I think things are slowly changing. Certainly my pyschologist said that they are seeing more and more women referred for therapy due to their births. I think due to the fact that a lot of people with pstd symptoms "recover" without treatment has led the NHS to want to wait to diagnose unless they really can't avoid it. Certainly my pyschriatrist said they didn't like to diagnose until at least 8-10 weeks after the traumatic event. Keep pushing.

I feel like telling a woman who’s had a traumatic birth that she’s got PND is like punching her in the face then telling her she must have PMS if she gets upset!

They told me I had the baby blues when I was a suicidal, rage filled mess trying to leave dc1 in NICU because I thought he was a doll. I think there is definitely a lean towards minimising what women go through in the hope we will just go away and get on with it.