Why is everyone so anti elective c-section?

[Gangle]

I'm only 7 weeks pregnant but am sure I want an elective c-section. I've read extensively around the subject and think I'm well informed on the pros and cons of elective c-section v VBAC but it seems there is so much stigma attached to elective c-sections and that people will do/say anything to attempt to dissuade you from having one. Just wondering why there isn't more respect for your wishes about how you want to give birth.

i think people would feel you are missing out on the most beutiful experience ever some people dont have the choice but to have c section but giving birth is amazing its not as bad as it looks and isn't as horrible as some people say i found it amazing

and i had a terrible pregnancy and birth just gas and air and i found it wonderful your body just goes into complete overdrive and does what it has to do

why choose to be in pain for weeks and limited with your baby for few days when you can give birth naturally leave hospital quicker

pros and cons on both sides but c sections i feel should be if mum and baby were at risk why miss out on a beautiful experience if you dont have to

Not sure I can add much to what's here. I've only had an emergency c-section. Its hurts like hell for a few days! I was miserable and breastfeeding was a nightmare. However I count myself lucky that I was feeling pretty much ok by 2 months and back at the gym at 3 months. Pouch of skin over the scar has almost gone, but that was only because I starved myself after getting a horrendous anal fissure caused by being constipated by all the painillers . I pretty much gave up eating because I was too scared to go to the loo. Its virtually healed now, 9 months on.

Gangle - hope you can swot up on loads of info and make an informed decision. . Good luck.

Gangle, your strong feelings against VB (and all the posts in response) made me think, so thank you! You've read the stats, you know that risks are higher with CS for you, your baby and any future children but you still want to go that way. I realised how often I've not chosen the lowest-risk option and couldn't necessarily justify it to others but would make the same choices again. (I was at the other end of the birth spectrum though, preferring to avoid a Group B Strep test even though I'd been positive a year before, so that I could labour at home/maternity unit). This is just the very first of a multitude of statistical hurdles that will litter your path as a parent. Sooner or later most of us go with our gut instinct straight off and choose to read only those stats that back us up. Maybe you just got there a lot sooner than the rest of us!

None of my business, but wondered if the root of your feelings may be performance anxiety, as for public speaking? If you go the natural route then you are perceived to have some degree of influence over the outcome, hence trauma/sense of let down if things don't go smoothly. If you have a planned caesarean then it is all in the hands of the surgical team and (other than the initial choice), none of the consequences would be attributable to you. I'm probably way off here. As long as you know why you want what you want that's all that matters.

That Observer article makes a point that both CS-all-the-way advocates and natural birth fans would profoundly agree with, but for different reasons: "by taking away the unpredictability, pain and fear associated with normal birth you may be doing both mother and child a great service." Well, maybe the unpredictability is harder to eliminate with VB but certainly the pain and fear can be massively reduced by hypnobirthing / reading Ina May Gaskin or Sheila Kitzinger. My favourite birth prep book was Blooming Birth - really down to earth with some good ideas, if I remember rightly through the veil of sleep deprivation!

All the best, whatever you decide to do in March.

April sorry!

How sad, though, that women in society have grown to fear and look negatively on the changes brought about by such normal bodily processes as childbirth and age.

Expat - do you think that there was ever a place or time in European culture when women enjoyed the ravages of childbirth? That they didn't fear it?

One in three used to die in childbirth. How could any women not fear giving birth in the past?

In 1900, chidbirth in the UK was twice as dangerous as the most dangerous male occupation of the time, being a coal miner.

Most of these deaths would have been, I think, from postpartum infection, due to the lack of antibiotics. And at the time, most women delivered at home.

Home deliveries ob safer now, with access to modern standards of hygine and antibiotics if needed, and the option of a nice, fast ambulance to the hospital if there areaproblems

Death in childbirth or soon afterwards and very high rates of child mortality are one thing. But huge numbers of women in the past also suffered from prolapses, incontinence etc as a result of multiple pregnancies that was hardly talked about let alone treated.

We have little to fear today in comparison, even if the day of giving birth is still, statistically, the most dangerous day in a woman or child's life.

I think that, statistically, the last day in your life is probably the most dangerous

Hmm... . Isn't the last day in your life the least dangerous - no more risks, ever?

I think it depends on whether you are going up or down.

Probably in the past a lot of deaths could be attributed to poor ante natal care, if things aren't picked up during pregnancy then they may present during birth. Obviously we have the luxury of good ante natal care and any problems should be picked up early enough to do something about it.
I decided upon a home birth because it was a sensible option for me, a healthy woman with not so much as single pregnancy problem and with a family with a history of very quick labours, it was great and as I also felt stressed in a hospital environment, being at home was best. Had there been other things to consider maybe I would have made a different decision.

Ah... then it also depends on whether you believe in an afterlife . Gosh, glad I don't have to worry about that

Just wanted to make one point which is that some of the high infant mortality rates in the past can be attributed to the fact that it wasn't until the middle of the last century that any real effort was made to resuscitate babies if they came out in poor condition. (Apgar scores are named after Virginia Apgar who first started routinely assessing infants immediately after birth.) It isn't solely to do with 'rescuing' babies during labour that has decreased perinatal mortality.

Does anyone think that any birth experience isn't painful, for that matter? I realise that an epidural kills the pain, but post partum the vast majority of women are sore.

Mine (sections) were sore, but I wasn't in dreaful pain afterwards. possibly helped by the fact that I had patient controled analgesia in the first few days (with Dd, they didn't do this in the hospital where I had ds). I've been in more pain with back problems.

also, some women want to elect for c.s to ensure their pelvic floor stays as it was....although birth obviously does have an effect on the pelvic floor, simply carrying a baby does have an impact, so once you have been pregnant, pelvic floor is different. so even if you elect for c.s, you still need to do your kegels.

Not as painful as vaginal birth. No way! All that stuff about pain afterwards with a c section, is rubbish imo.

Was in awful pain after vaginal birth, horrendous, and in bed for 3 weeks. I would rather be cut in my abdomen than "down there" any time

i found my section to be agonisingly painful, and in conjunciton with all the opiates, i was virtually passed out for the first 24 hours of my baby's life..it took me 48 hours to realise he was mine... i found it very traumatic. I couldn;t get out of bed for 36 hours...

whereas after an 18 hour labour, i was up and about within 2 hours ! yes, i was a little sore, and it stang a bit to wee for 48 hours, but i was up, awake, aware, holding my baby and getting to know her.....

it is very subjective

but if women were designed to give birth abdominally, we would have been designed differently

womens bodies are created, on the whole, to be able to give birth

modern society and modern obstetrics are conspiring to take away the faith we have in our own bodies, to give birth, and to make us believe that labour is a one size fits all conveyor belt, that all women should fit , or they are not normal.