Women Unprepared for Childbirth

[AtheneNoctua]

Interesting article on our perceptions of childbirth and how they affect how we feel about the experience when our (false) expectations are not met.

Women Unprepared for Childbirth

"But those involved in providing ante-natal sessions, while listening to these, need to make sure that women are aware of how things may go and help them construct realistic expectations," says Joanne Lally, who led the research.

I completely agree with this. My antenatal class, while it did cover pain relief, did not really communicate a true picture on what kind of pain to expect. Never mind intervention like forceps or worse yet a caesarean. Why not? Don't women have a right to go into labour fully informed of all the likely outcomes.

I wonder if not talking about caesareans and promoting natural childbirth contributes to a woman's sense of failure when she ends up in an unplanned caesarean or otherwise medicalised delivery. And furthermore does this contribute to the onset of PND?

I haven't read the whole thread.

I attended NCT classes and maybe I was very lucky, but I felt my classes were very realistic about the pros and cons of all the pain relief options. As far as I know, no one in the class felt that the classes hid the reality of the pain. And no one seemed unhappy about their pain relief choices. We all had very different birth experiences but no one felt like a failure for asking for epidurals/pethidine etc.

I feel we were given enough information to make informed choices. Some of us felt the need to read tons of books and others were satisfied with the information they got from the classes. Some tried to give birth with no drugs, others went straight in and asked for an epidural - and were glad they did.

I suppose the quality of classes must vary a lot.

I agree that women don't need to be unneccesarily scared about horror stories. But, some general information would go along way to prepare them.

For example, a ten minute chat with a aconsultant in an ante natal class that goes over what happens with a section, what kind of recovery to expect. And, also, the DH/DP should probably be there because he will have a more involved support role with a section because he might need to around for a week or two to help you with liftting.

VS, I think you are well prepared for the pain. You have no illusions about it. You know what kind of birth you want. You know what your options are. That won't make it hurt less. But you are informed.

I agree completely with Lulumama about people not hearing - or mishearing.

I think much of the problem lies with the way we live now. Childbirth is depicted as a terribly traumatic drama on most TV programmes and as a society we have to some extent removed ourselves from the business of childbirth. When most people gave birth at home it must have therefore been part of normal life rather than something that went on in a hospital away from earshot and out of sight. When I was pregnant the first time the only birth stories I heard were negative and dramatic. (for some reason people love to share these stories when you are pregnant which says alot). I went into childbirth the first time feeling terrified. I had attended classes and watched loads of births on cable TV but nothing on earth could have prepared me for the pain. I opted for an epidural and had a fab birth in the end. However, after the birth there was a disinct 'pressure' from other women re: my choice to have an epidural in much the same way I felt pressured to breast feed. I am due again in 3 weeks (hopefully less because I am sick of being pregnant already!) and will go into this birth better informed 9mostly due to MN) but with the same attitude of having an open mind.

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Hmm. I personally would like to shoot all the people who say:

'oh, but it's only a day' (tell DD1)
'you'll forget it all the minute your baby is in your arms' (nope)
'it can't be that bad, or nobody would have a second child'.

All of which were regularly trotted out by the women at my antenatal group, dammit.

How come every single bloody tradition perpetrated by women does say childbirth's bloody awful, eh?

I felt a converse pressure to refuse anaesthesia.

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God this is all I need.

Am seven months PG with second child (delivered by C-section).

Have spent life shitting self about labour, have recently managed to control anxieties through hypnobirthing techniques, now am shitting myself again.

Keep thinking of my friend whose DH said her eyes 'went silver' with pain during her natural delivery.

I agree about the perceived pressure to refuse anaesthesia. Why is why gas and air more "natural" than an epidural? Or pethidine?

Had epidural with ds1 after his heart rate dipped dangerously low, that was great (and no, it didn't least to a "cascade of interventions" as some people like to repeat ad nauseam).

"Just breathe" isn't going to help in a medical emergency.

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Er, actually, they don't particularly, I wrote a piece on this a while back. Pethedine a bit, an epidural not really madly at all.

I know that statistically this is probably very insignificant from a statistical point of view, but DS1 nearly died at birth and although no-one could ever establish exactly why, the conclusion was that it was most likely an extreme reaction to pethidine.

And that was very tautologous, from a tautological point of view ...

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I haven't read the whole thread but I just wanted to say that I only went to the NHS ante-natal courses and they were really good. There was no misleading belief that everything can be solved by breathing properly, in fact I think we spent about 10 minutes on that in the whole thing (4 hourly sessions as I remember it).

We were told about all the possible pain relief, the pros and the cons. All the possible problems that would lead to a medical emergency. We were shown a lot of the equipment (what the ventuous and the forceps looked like, the epidural needle). We also had a hospital tour and saw the birthing pool and the birthing balls so it wasn't all focussed on a lot of intervention.

I suppose that it might have frightened some, although I don't think the even the youngest mothers in the very mixed group of ages and experiences were any more frightened than they were before. For me it made it easier. I knew what to expect and that it wouldn't be a walk in the park. It isn't called 'labour' for nothing.

The HV said to me after DS1 was born that it sounded like I had a tough time (longish labour, forceps delivery, episiotomy etc)but I said to her that I honestly didn't think it was that bad and that I hadn't expected it to be easy.

I didn't do NCT in the end because I just didn't get round to booking it but I wonder, if the clue isn't in the name, for those who have felt they haven't been told the whole story by an NCT course. It is called the Natural Childbirth Trust so surely that is where their focus is? I don't know, like I say I didn't get on the course.

As far as I am concerned though, knowledge is power. The more you know the less frightening it is - well for me anyway - and I think we have a responsibility to find out as much as possible for ourselves through reading as well as courses. I know we are all different though.

didn't take Blu long to spot me either

How can you describe childbirth? It's so subjective.
I have had worse pain with an ear infection than the labour pains with both my children.
But labour pains are different to other pain. I tell the pregnant ladies I come into contact IF they ask that for me, the pain came in waves, building up to incredible intensity, then it went. I was lucky to be able to get into a rhythm and had the positive attitude that everytime I had a contraction that was one step nearer to having the baby.

Nobody told me about the ring of fire though!
That bit has taken me by surprise twice.

Oh poo, meant to underline Natural not cross it out.

That will teach me to preview before posting anything fancy!

Except that it isn't. It's the NATIONAL childbirth trust.

I feel that the fact that generations of women have described childbirth as unspeakably painful is probably worth noticing.

I went to NCt classes which were ok but I felt quite pressured to stay at home until the absolute last minute and just go in at the last minute as home was the "proper" environment to have your labour.

As a result I stayed at home with my contractions for 16 hours just taking some co-codamol (!). By the time i got to hospital I was still only 5cm and in so much pain I thought I might die. I was too distressed to think about anything else and demanded an epidural even though I'd really not wanted one.

I just wish I'd insisted on going in earlier on in the labour, trying gas and air and seeing if that helped and managing my labour in a safe environment where professionals are on hand to help you rather than being bewildered and frightened at home.

I know this isn't everones experienec and eveyone feels the pain differently but some of the things I'd told were definitely true (ie you get a proper break between contractions) actually weren't and I was terrified, and in actual fact still am.