Life and Birth (BBC)

[Wolfgirrl]

Anyone else watching?

I found this week's episode really sad. Roo looked quite traumatised at the end.

It brought back a few memories of my birth last year (also a forceps delivery but not rotational).

Good series overall I think.

I’ve enjoyed it. My baby is currently back to back. And the thought of forceps for rotation scare the hell out of me. Luckily, it looked like it happened all quite quickly & she was exhausted so didn’t give much thought to it. Bless her after all of that plodding on by herself. The baby was so gorgeous, so worth it ☺️

I'm a FTM, due in 5 weeks and I've been watching it and I'll be honest I'm quite nervous. She looked like she was in an awful amount of pain and the fact she had been in labour for over 56 hours yeah... kinda bricking it if I'm honest x

Yes I've been enjoying the series. Poor Roo looked exhausted and in shock bless her.
It seems when she was talking about the birth that's she was still deeply affected. I hope she's managed to come to terms or speak with someone about it.
She had quite a specific plan of how she wanted her birth to be and I've found that when things don't go to plan it affects people enormously.

Think her expectations were a little high in the first place. You could tell she wanted a very natural labour and I think a lot of the time that's quite unrealistic and just ends in disappointment. So many women think they're going to get some kind of medal for no pain relief and floating about in a pool and then just end up feeling crap when it doesn't go that way. Best just to go with the flow at the time.

@skinnyhotchoc
I agree, my plan was to have no plan. However a lot of women do have specific birth plans. You see on forums how bad these ladies are affected.
As you've said there's no medal and women put a lot of pressure on themselves especially when you have little control on how labour goes x

Agreed. I'm quite sceptical of the whole 'hypnobirthing and no pain relief' thing as I think it implies childbirth is more of a mental exercise than a physical one, that you can control it if you prepare enough etc. This leads to a sense of failure in women that put hours into preparing for the birth only for it to go pear shaped and end up with interventions.

I didnt make a plan and didnt practice anything. I don't feel traumatised by my birth, partly because I had zero expectations and knew from the outset it would be highly medicalised (type 1 diabetic induced at 36 weeks).

Roo clearly gave it 110% but even then it was futile. I do think the episode demonstrated how an easy birth is mainly down to luck, the baby being in the right position etc.

@Wolfgirrl
Yes, it does show that. It's just the luck of the draw how labour goes in my eyes x