Birth injuries

[KayBM]

Hi everyone,

I'm 5 months on from a Kiellands forceps delivery in theatre. Found it pretty traumatic. I'm so glad however that my little boy is ok, as I think he was very much in danger of not being ok! As a home birth transfer it could all have gone incredibly wrong and I feel really guilty over the danger I obviously placed him in. However, I was led by my midwife and didn't understand what and how often things go wrong.

In terms of birth injuries I have got a prolapse, pain, pain on walking, bad back, can't have sex, fairly regular constipation and days where I'm either weeing every 1 to 2 hours or can't. Anyway I know from since finding Mumsnet that many women are affected by birth injuries but I wondered how you were coping? Did you feel like you had enough warning while you were pregnant? Or do you think vaginal birth risks were downplayed? I certainly didn't know much at all about birth injuries and long term effects.

If you had a c section and birth injuries please get in touch too!

If anyone wants to private message me that would be great too...

Wow, reading all of these posts, I'm sorry you all had to and are still going through these things.

It's horrifying to me that things aren't told in plain detail and for me, it was all a bit romanticised. Interventions are more accepted as something that will happen rather than a choice and if you don't agree you're risking lots of things to your baby but these things are very vague.

For me, induction seemed to be booked without a lot of information and it was more told than asked, it was more a lovely little procedure with some tablets and a drip if it didn't work. It was about a minute long conversation and as a FTM, you don't know what you should and shouldn't be asking and want to implicitly trust your carers. Thankfully labour started itself the morning of the PM induction so that never happened.
Whilst I can't even pretend I had a bad birth at all reading these posts, a Dr did just appear right at the end of pushing saying she was doing an episiotomy to help him out with suction too as they were worried about him but told me if I could push whilst she was getting ready, he might come out. I had in my birth plan I didn't want an episiotomy and I'd never heard about suction anytime throughout my pregnancy; risks, what it involved and here was a Dr just about to spring it on me! I expressed I didn't want it but felt I wasn't listened to or taken seriously.
I pushed him out very fast in the end (!) and tore so she had to do some sort of manic dive to catch him and he was absolutely fine with the best apgar scores straight away so it horrifies me that the procedure might have been done without a real need; how many more people does this happen to?
No one has seen my stitches since the day I left hospital either

@2007Millie

You were so so so lucky that you had a doctor that advised that. As it was I had no idea of the relative risks of C's to me or baby, and let's not forget they can be life-threatening sometimes. I was told my baby was low. In a matter of fact Kiellands are used when a baby is quite high enough up for a c section to be as good an option. But I did not know this. The only different risk is massive haemmorhage, if I could go back I would take that.

As it was I didn't know any of this. Most women seem poorly informed and from what I have read on here doctors tell women anything to get them to consent. There is a drive to reduce c sections...

@KayBM

I thought my labour was tough, but when I started hearing others stories, I now count my blessings every day because I realise how very lucky I was. I live hours away from the hospital I gave birth in, but if I am to have another baby, I would travel back there for an elective section because the medical care was excellent.

I truly hope that in time, more women like you will speak up and your voices will be heard. Proper care during labour should only result in complications in very rare circumstances, they shouldn't be the norm, and it is quite clear that unfortunately they are.

For those who are thinking about future pregnancies, I had my post birth debrief (by phone) with a consultant last week. We went through everything and she was very honest that once you start on the path of a vaginal birth you can’t ever completely rule out using things like the suction cup or forceps. It was on my birth plan that I didn’t want forceps, but in that particular situation it was the safest option for me and baby.
On that basis she’s supporting me in having an elective c section if I’m lucky enough to get pregnant again - and has put this in my debrief letter for me to use.
She made it very clear that having torn once increases the risk of further tears - I think it’s a 3% risk of a third degree tear if you’ve never torn before, but 7% if you have. As she put it, 7% may not sound like a lot, but it’s pretty bad for those it does happen to. I really appreciated the honesty, I found it refreshing (and rare).

@ivfgottostaypositive - I'm so sorry to hear that. Was it elective or emergency? Were you offered any surgery to fix the scarring?

It's a bit as if I went on a skiing holiday and someone found it necessary to tell me about the compound fracture they suffered on their own holiday, followed by gangrene and amputation.

Apart from the fact that 72 hour labour is pretty common, 80% of women tear, 5% have a tear involving the anus and half of those are left with permanent issues as a result.

It's more analogous to someone on a ski holiday describing the blister they got on their foot in terms of how likely it is to happen to you. Women die in childbirth far more often than skiers get a leg amputated.

Being informed can help make choices, but equally importantly it helps people to deal with the aftermath. If you always knew there was a risk you would be more easily able to accept what has happened. That doesn't mean anecdotal horror stories - it means a calm and factual explanation of the risks of each option.

Birth plans are "advertised" as being about choosing to go in a pool or have a jab of pethidine. Those things are neither here nor there - it should be vaginal birth or c section, at what point you want to move to emergency c section, are you willing to be induced, do you consent to forceps or prefer emcs, that kind of thing. I think a lot of the time once you've started in a vaginal birth they can't really be bothered to move to c section so end up in a kind of worsening spiral of interventions. A lot of these traumatic forceps deliveries could probably be avoided by having a lower threshold for emcs.