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?

thanks alfiesbabe! i do feel i can cope. i'm actively looking forward to going into labour. but i must repeat that i don't feel birth has been sanitised in any of the information sources i mentioned before. (off to read the article now)

fog clears a little now i've read that!

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pruners i do see your point, even if you do put it across in a superior, patronising tone which i'm sure is unintentional. if you had read my posts thoroughly then you would know that i have had very little information on anything other than non-drug methods of managing pain, which is what the article is saying promotes a feeling of 'failure' in women requiring lots of pain relief. this is why you are confusing me - are you saying the info i have read/recieved is a good or bad thing? you seemed to be very anti-intervention in you first post.
from the scenarios mentioned in your last post i do feel underprepared, but then i don't see how the antenatal class could have gone into these detials with scaring the crap outta me. i do feel now though that the risks and side effects were not discussed in nearly enough depth.

pruners excellent posts. You sum up a good approach to childbirth - going in armed with knowledge about what you want/how you will cope with situations, NOT because you'll necessarily need to have interventions, but so that you feel mentally prepared. Think of it as a toolkit - you very rarely need more than one or two tools for a job, but a working knowledge of what all the tools are for is useful!

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just posted and read your previous post pruners, you were too quick for me.

(feeling guilty)
pruners, just to clarify, i now know where you are coming from. sorry.

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I am not saying it is not the case that those of us who did it without drugs did not have a hard labour. My own drug-free labour was like going through hell and back. However, having had no pain relief during my first labour, labour number 2 was different in many ways and I could never have done it drug-free. I think no matter how hard a time you feel you had in labour and doing it drug-free, you cannot be sure that other womens labours are not in fact harder than yours even if it seems impossible to you.

This time I am having an elective c-section and I can't wait

And re pride issue. I am equally proud of the way all my 3 children came into this world!

I have to say I felt my NHS classes did not prepare us at all for the amount of pain.

Also, there was a lot said about 'You'll hold your baby and it will all be worth it. It will be a magical moment.'

Well, that was not my experience. And although it's only a small sample, none of my friends had this 'magical moment' either.

Aside from all the unrealistic expectations about the pain, I really wish so much emphasis hadn't been put on how you would feel on meeting your baby. Because when you don't feel like that, you feel like a total failure and a bad mother before you've even left the delivery room! I'm really happy for those women who get that moment, but I wish someone had told me beforehand that it might not happen!

Hoonette - agree about the meeting baby thing.

Was lucky and had an amazing exp with dc1, but not a huge emotional rush with dc2 (poor neglected thing ) That really did make me feel bad!

Choice maybe isn't emphasised enough - my SIL did tell me she felt a bit under pressure to only do gas and air as I'd managed second time around with G&A, but it's not a competition, perhaps more emphasis on - if you want to you can do X or Y or Z and these are all the options etc...and it's ok to choose...

I agree with the hand holding part of the article, first time I had the works, except pethadine as no-one was around who COULD administer it...all different m/wives who I'd never met before...second time had a wonderful m/wife that I knew who stayed with me throughout and it was MUCH easier to manage the pain etc felt I had a lot more faith in her and her judgement.

Anyone had any experiences of a doula?

Being new to mumsnet and not read all of these comments - I do agree that the ante natal 'class' which my husband and I attended was very biased towards the natural child birth (no pain relief) process and actively promoted the birthing centre with this purpose.

The best advice I received (from a collague at work) was to learn yoga and to concentrate on and make the most of the period between contractions. This worked really well for me - stayed at home until 6cm dilated before going to hospital with TENS machine.

In my birthing plan I stipulated that I was happy to discuss and explore all pain relief modalities, which seemed to create a rational discussion between ourselves and the midwife.