Why did you have a C section?

[Awkwardusername]

Recovering from an emergency c section for “failure to progress” (my waters went, I got induced and made it to 7cm and couldn’t get any further) and curious about others.
Struggling to come to terms with it so hoping this might help!

So if you had a c section, was it emergency or elective?
If an emergency, what was the reason?
If elective, what made you choose a section?

Mine was an emergency 'crash' section - under general anaesthetic.

I was pregnant with twins. Dd2 was born vaginally. ds2 got turned, got stuck and his heart rate was dropping. The dr tried manually manipulating him but ds2 wasn't having any of it so I was rushed to theatre and knocked out. It was less than half an hour from attempting to deliver to baby born. Ds2 actually ended up with a slight cut to his head from my section!

Recovery was ok because twins needed to be in on transitional care for a while. But ask for a birth debrief. It was great for me to understand what had happened once we could discuss it without people being at 'panic stations'.

Planned due to breech baby, although turns out she wasn't breech on the day but I asked if they could do it anyway and they said yes (I think I was very lucky with this as the midwife said most consultants wouldn't do a section just for maternal request). I had prepared psychologically for a section, for the baby to arrive that day (and organised childcare for DC1) plus I wasn't really relishing the thought of another vaginal birth.

I feel for you. It's a hard lump of disappointment, fuelled by hormones, tiredness, and pain.

I had an emergency C-section for pretty much the exact same reason. It was a bit of a bitter pill to swallow as I'd had a lovely vaginal birth with DC1, and couldn't figure out where I'd gone wrong when so much of their labours were identical. Other than the speed of dilation ofc.

Failure to progress is such an awful term, because it is far from a failure on your part. Did your obstetrician mention any reason for the slow dilation? For me, I'd reached 5cm and stalled there when baby started to show signs of distress. Turns out that baby was back to back and had tipped their head slightly backwards. So poor contact was being made with the cervix and (in the words of the surgeon) would never have been born vaginally. When I started thinking of all the "what ifs", and making myself feel guilty and bad, it did help me to realise it was a path I would have been heading down, and it was a question of when, not if. It was better for both of us to have done it sooner rather than later.

Definitely get the debrief. It does help, at the very least, to understand why things happened the way they did. I can't promise the disappointment goes away, as I'm still working through it myself, but it definitely has lessened. It's no longer constantly at the forefront of my mind consuming all my thoughts. I don't feel guilty about any of the choices I made either.

It's still early days for you, but I promise you will feel better about things eventually. Hopefully soon.

Because all of my friends have had bad vaginal birth experiences (3rd degree tears, haemorrhage, prolapse, shoulder dysplasia, undiagnosed breech and baby starved of oxygen) and it scared the shit out of me. Had absolutely no desire to experience labour either! Had a fantastic experience and swift recovery with my section, took a lot of anxiety out of birth for me.

2 emergency 1 a reluctant elective - 1st one, big baby 10.5lbs, was coming down at an angle and although I progressed to pushing his head got stuck in my pelvis. General anaesthetic and apparently that was a good thing as they had to shove a lot to get him back out of my pelvis.

#2, same size baby, rapid labour to pushing but his shoulders got stuck - refused to allow forceps etc and demanded CS (well, husband did, I was too busy keeping the G&A mask on my face ) and they later told us they would have had to break both his shoulders to get him out vaginally.

#3 - advised elective after previous experiences but was desperate for a 'proper' birth so lied about my dates. Baby born by EC at 41 weeks but would never have been born normally due to short cord. same size baby!

It took me many years to come to terms with what I perceived as a 'failure' on my part to give birth 'properly'. Even though I had problem free pregnancies and breast fed each to 12 months. I think you have to allow yourself to accept your feelings and try to work through them without allowing them to overwhelm you. Focus on your beautiful baby and pat yourself on the back for growing them in your body! x

1st - EMCS due to foetal distress, followed by a massive haemorrhage.
2nd - Planned c-section due to severe SPD, as advised by the consultant.
Zero regrets.

Two c-sections here.

1 - cat 1 emergency. Got to 10cm and 2 hours of pushing (33 hours of labour) but my daughter was transverse so wasn't coming out.

2 - had an elcs booked but went into spontaneous labour a week before it was booked in for. Progressed to 9cm within 3 hours from first twinge. Hospital said I could go for VBAC and I thought it wasn't going to take long because I could feel him moving down. Opted for an emergency section regardless because I wanted to stick to my original plan. Regretted not going for VBAC after.

Emergency for first one- failure to progress. Ended up at 5cm after 30 hours with back to back contractions which was horrific. Got sepsis. Had emcs

worked out ok though because I was offered an elcs for my second. I thought about it for ages because I wasn’t sure between elcs and vbac but went for elcs to avoid failure to progress again. The whole experience and recovery was so much better.

I've had 2 C-sections with each of my premmie boys. #1 waters broke & I was on bedrest but by Day 3 i had an infection down there & I was allergic to the Penicillin drugs, also baby was getting very distressed during my contractions even though they were still light. So sort of an emergency & out he came.
#2 also waters broke, & put on bedrest & was "allowed" to try labouring.
Haha, it hurt so much more than I remembered.
I had also had a cerclage suture in my cervix for that last pregnancy & on day 3 we agreed a caesarean was my best option.
My first born was born vaginally, overdue & I had a number of stitches. Ouchy.
The best result though is a live baby & Mum however the way they make their entrance.

For me it was failure to progress, I'd been in labour three days and only got to 4cm dilated 🤦‍♀️ my dd was understandably getting distressed at this point so they whipped me in for an emcs.

It wasn't how id planned having my baby but we both came out of it alive which I guess is the main thing 🤷‍♀️

I forgot to tack on that me and my NCT group (6 women) have 10 kids between us now (well, 9 and the 10th is due later this month).

In birth order:

1. Induction, vaginal birth
2. Natural labour, forceps + 3rd degree tear
3. Induction, emergency C-section
4. Induction, emergency C-section
5. Natural labour, vaginal birth
6. Augmented labour, 3rd degree tear
7. Natural labour (albeit 33 weeks), emergency C-section
8. Induction, emergency C-section
9. Natural labour, emergency C-section

10. (Expected to be) Elective C-section

So yeah. Just one of us had the birth we wanted. But still felt bad about it because she had an epidural, which wasn't in the plan.

Remember, elective just means planned not chosen and emergency can cover a huge range of urgency.

My first was the same as you, failure to progress. Never got past 1cm despite hours on the drips. Fortunately couldn't feel any contractions even though there were plenty showing on the monitor. It was very calm.

Second I was going to have an ELCS anyway but in the end she was transverse so it was necessary anyway. She was back down so they couldn't get her out and had to do an extra vertical incision in my uterus. She needed to be resuscitated (she was fine) and I lost a lot of blood so my elective was much more complicated than my emergency.

Both positive experiences on the whole. They're 5 and 3 now and their births mean not a jot.

You'll get there OP, give yourself time.

I went in to be induced at 41+5 and they examined me, scanned me, saw that my baby was a) ginormous and b) seemed to be stuck in my pelvis and basically said "it's your choice but it's highly unlikely this baby will come out vaginally so you can go for an elective section now or run a high risk of needing an emergency one later". So I went for the ELCS and thank God I did because even as an elective, it was touch and go. She was completely stuck – they had to use forceps and bring in extra staff to hold me down while they hauled her out – and I haemorrhaged and needed 4+ hours worth of extra surgery. I would have died without a section.

She was 10lb 13oz and 60cm in the end. No gestational diabetes, my family just have giant babies. At 5 she's still pretty tall, although down to 80th for height and 50th for weight.

I had previous sexual trauma

Oh and to reassure you, even though my section went about as badly as a section can go with mother and baby surviving, the recovery was absolutely fine. Very little pain. I do think it was a little harder to establish breastfeeding – it took ages for my milk to come in – but otherwise it was fine and I would do it again.

Similar story to you, I started labour naturally, waters went naturally - they started the induction drip to speed it up as they weren't sure if I had meconium in my waters... got to about 8/9cm but nothing more was happening. Had an emergency c-section!

My first - I was in labour from Monday teatime, but very slow. Went from midwife-led birthing centre to delivery suite with drugs, epidural etc. C-section for 'failure to progress' at Weds lunchtime. The midwife explained that she saw in the operating theatre that DD's head was wodged in my pelvis at an angle, she could not come out like that.

I did feel mixed up about it and we had feeding problems that might have been from drugs/exhaustion/DD having her neck crunched by contractions for a long time.

My second - decided to go for VBAC, about 8 hours of contractions building, he was born within a few hours of arriving at hospital, was 9lb5 and I needed an episiotomy and no time for epidural.

The actual birth bit of VBAC was extremely painful but overall I preferred it by far as an experience, once he was out I felt fine and could move around whereas with CS I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. I had logically accepted that CS hadn't been my fault but I did find it psychologically healing somehow to give birth vaginally. I was surprised by the relief.

In the old days, a birth like I had with DD would have just gone on until she or I both got exhausted and died.

There are pros and cons to both CS and VB, you're not guaranteed a smooth ride in either case. I think it's like having a train ticket - some people get a beautiful view of the mountains, some people get farted on and sat next to someone eating junk food, some people have a train replacement bus that takes six hours. So long as you get to the end destination, that's all that matters.

Anyone who makes out CS is the easy way out obviously hasn'thad their abdomen cut open in a room full of strangers then experienced major surgery recovery while caring for a newborn!

I had a c-section because of pre-eclampsia.

Strangely enough, it was put down on the records as elective rather than emergency despite it not being a choice at all. I queried it and was told it wasn't an "emergency" as such because it wasn't desperately immediate and they didn't need to call in a surgeon and operating theatre team in specially. It could "wait until tomorrow" and be added to the operating theatre list for "tomorrow", so because it wasn't an "emergency", as strictly defined, it had to go down as elective!

There were only two boxes on the form, and they had to tick either "emergency" or "elective".

Ever since, I've never really believed NHS statistics, especially for so-called "elective" c-sections, as the statistics are always used to push against the so-called "too posh to push" parents, but now I know how the statistics are made up, it shows how dangerous it is to take NHS statistics at face value.

Let's face it, how hard can it be to change the form to have a third option besides emergency or elective, and have something like "medically required" between them?

Dc1 was an emcs for "failure to descend". He had a large head (38 cm) and anything over 35 cm is linked to an increased chance of csections anyway (I may have misused the University library to come to terms with his arrival). They tried forceps, got what felt like half the hospital to feel my pelvis and decided it was suboptimal. He never budged from mid pelvis so they shoved him back up and I had an emcs.

Dc2 also an emcs although she was meant to be an elective. She also had a massive head and I couldn't face going through it all again to still end up on the operating table.

Both my recoveries were very easy though. Dc1's maybe because I was having what turned out to be a psychotic break but dc2's was literally a walk in the park.

1st - elective due to breech
2nd - elective due to placenta previa
3rd - elective due to breech

My babies are topsy-turvy 🙂

Hi - I had failure to progress for a birth thst required an episiotomy and ventouse. Hated that expression when in reality by baby got stuck and his heart rate was struggling. Made me feel I had failed?

My second was an emcs. For what I felt was a soft reason. My baby was too active in labour and wasn't resting so they couldn't get his baseline heartbeat so moved to c-section. Not complaining - anything to ensure my baby arrived safely is the main thing

Emergency section following 36 hours of labour, was induced at 42 weeks. I only got to 4cm and he was posterior and brow presentation. When the midwife examined me the last time, he had moved and was face presentation and still posterior. I haemorrhaged during the section too. It took me 5 years to ttc again as I was so traumatised by the whole thing. I had a debrief while pregnant with dc2 and went on to have a successful VBAC, albeit with a 3c tear. It does get better OP, I used to have nightmares about it and was verging on hysterical during my second labour but my first is 16 now and I don't really think about it

@Awkwardusername
Same as you, failure to progress because cervix didn't dilate properly. In fact it started to close up a bit. I was being induced, waters had broken on the drip

Oops hit wrong button.. Waters had broken 72 hrs before on Wednesday night, went in to be induced Friday morning. Pessaries didn't work, went on the drip and had an epidural. 12 hours later no further on when the realised cervix was closing. It turned out the baby was a face presentation and stuck fast. Took some tugging to pull her out. She was born Saturday night ok but bruised face and exhausted. I felt such a failure.

Second time round, same failure to progress but that was a natural spontaneous labour not induced. They didn't hang around that time, said words to the effect of this is a rerun of last time, let's do a Csection and she was born around 12 hours after I'd gone in. The first one was exhausted when she was born, and I knew she was ok because I could see her legs moving even if she wasn't crying for a couple of minutes, the second one came out yelling.

Elective C-section here. I had forceps with episiotomy and tearing with my first baby which was hideous and awful recovery. C-section was a 100 times better, so glad I pushed to have one.