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Childbirth

Share experiences and get support around labour, birth and recovery.

Original poster

How much of the birth experience is down to luck?

62 replies

Mamaof1DD · 27/12/2023 21:40

I felt I prepared really well for the birth of DD, I was always my bouncing on my ball, practised breathing techniques etc…PROM, EMCS, severe PPH and sepsis.

The thread about high c section rates got me thinking: how much of birth is just sheer luck? Was I exceptionally unlucky? Are some women luckier than others? Can it be controlled?

I know there’s no real answer, just interested in what people think!

OP posts:
PerpetualStudent · 27/12/2023 21:43

It’s deffo massively down to luck. I had a super smooth pregnancy with DC1, did all the right things then - bam: pre-eclampsia and a very medicalised induction process.

strawberry2017 · 27/12/2023 21:45

No matter what we do as women the only person who gets a say is baby! They are coming the way they want to.

SnowRoomAtTheInn · 27/12/2023 21:50

Yeah, I’d say it’s massively down to stuff outside of our control.

Both me and my best friend were fit, healthy, young-ish first timers and did all the ‘model first time Mum’ stuff - yoga, , hypnobirthing etc etc. Textbook pregnancies, no issues.

Both booked into the birthing centre for low intervention births.

Both ended up with emergency c-sections.

Blumarine · 27/12/2023 21:50

Most of it is luck. I did everything right but my baby was very large. Obviously I couldn’t control how big my baby grew! So I ended up with a c section when he got stuck.

MrsBungle · 27/12/2023 21:50

Totally down to luck.

Newsenmum · 27/12/2023 21:52

Mamaof1DD · 27/12/2023 21:40

I felt I prepared really well for the birth of DD, I was always my bouncing on my ball, practised breathing techniques etc…PROM, EMCS, severe PPH and sepsis.

The thread about high c section rates got me thinking: how much of birth is just sheer luck? Was I exceptionally unlucky? Are some women luckier than others? Can it be controlled?

I know there’s no real answer, just interested in what people think!

I think it’s a bit of both tbh op. Yes doing lots of those things does help and we all know fear anxiety don’t help with childbirth. However there is so much more to it.

Ididivfama · 27/12/2023 21:55

I did absolutely everything the first time to try and have the perfect birth. Guess what? Still had a back to back baby, failure to progress and a c section. I felt awful that I didn’t do well enough, that I must’ve listened to all my hypnobirthing all wrong. I’m over it now, although due my second soon and a bit more ‘meh what will be will be’ over it all. It’s hard as obviously doing all of those things DOES work for some people and when my friends are doing home births and having them in the bath and stuff it does feel rubbish.
But then my mum had troubles and it can be down to things like womb shape. I’m lucky and healthy in other areas of my life so it’s ok this bit isn’t perfect.

Dorriethelittlewitch · 27/12/2023 22:08

Luck I think. Dh's family all have massive heads at birth and I have a flatter than average pelvis so dc1 got stuck. The NHS were determined not to interfere because I was progressing albeit slowly and it was horrendous. I laboured mostly at home, I walked, I bounced, I didn't take drugs but he never got below mid pelvis even with a six foot something Doctor pulling with forceps. Took around 75 hours of back to back labour before they admitted there was an issue. Ended up passing out during an emcs and dc1 went to Nicu. For ages I thought I'd failed.

yarnwitch · 27/12/2023 22:28

They say it's down to the 3 P's of birth: Power, Passage and Passenger. All of which are a mix of physical factors and luck.

mynameiscalypso · 27/12/2023 22:34

I think it's a bit of both. Something unlucky can always happen, whatever your birth choices are. But you can sometimes minimises the risks with the choices you take. For me, for a number of reasons, the least risky birth option was an ELCS so that's what I had and it was fine. I could have been 'lucky' and had a perfectly fine birth another way but that would have been more unlikely than with an ELCS. I also recovered extremely well from my ELCS. That was partly luck I'm sure but also partly the fact that I was exercising up to the day before I gave birth and had kept myself very fit during pregnancy which minimised the risk of a poor recovery. Obviously something like an infection could have changed that and derailed my recovery so it was 'lucky' that I didn't get one.

LucyInTheParkWithDragons · 27/12/2023 22:45

I suspect you can do things to make natural Labour (for want of a better term) nicer. If you’re fit, clued up on pain relief etc, then you’ll be better able to cope which will make the process easier.

But I wouldn’t know - my two transverse babies would never have been born vaginally however much yoga I did.

FlyingHighFlyingLow · 27/12/2023 22:57

Luck. My baby was in a bad position and large. I could never have pushed him out. I also dilated from 2/3 to 9cm in under 2 hours and baby got distressed. I couldn't control that.

peachybee · 27/12/2023 23:05

I do feel like I manifested my birth, it was perfect- even though baby was back to back and much faster than I expected. My waters went at 5am at 40+1 weeks, slow random contractions all day, had a nap and woke up to all systems go! 3hrs active labour, water birth, no drugs or gas, natural 3rd stage, no tearing etc- complete unicorn birth, I'd have 100 babies if they were all like that!

I did do a hypnobirthing course but I also researched and prepped for ALL possible outcomes for months. I knew how I'd like an induction or a section to go if I/baby needed it, what drugs I could be offered and how they work etc and it was all typed out in my birth plan and a copy given to everyone involved in my care. I think a lot of people prep for how they want their birth to go if it all goes to plan, but forget to prepare for all the things that could go 'wrong' and when you're in labour and having all that info thrown at you for the first time as it's happening it's very very scary and overwhelming and results in women feeling like they didn't have a positive experience.

However, I know I'm also very very lucky, I've had friends who prepped very similarly to me and it all went tits up!

VikingLady · 27/12/2023 23:29

DD was luck. I did everything "right" but she was breech and you couldn't tell easily from the midwife's exams. Emergency section.

DS, well, I do think that I could have affected that. Natural birth but really, really not a good one. Thing is that it was going great for home birth until my mum arrived to look after my eldest, but she wouldn't go with her, so I ended up with a well meaning but very distracting house guest who stressed me out completely, talked me into a total state of nerves that led to a hospital transfer which led to the cascade of interventions.

So 50/50 in my case.

Thankyouthankyoujellybean · 27/12/2023 23:38

PROM is total luck (or rather, bad luck) as far as I'm aware. Mine went when I was asleep in bed. Not much I could have done about that.

It does sound like you were exceptionally unlucky, OP, I'm sorry! If anyone has the ability to avoid EMCS, PPH and sepsis, I think they'd do it! How are you feeling now?

SouthLondonMum22 · 27/12/2023 23:41

It's massively down to luck because so many things simply can't be controlled.

JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn · 27/12/2023 23:43

Luck. My cervix refused point blank to open. Nothing I could do about that! Emergency c-section was the only way my baby was getting out.

Naptrappedmummy · 27/12/2023 23:44

I would say mostly luck but genetics could be a factor. Off the top of my head out of the last 22 babies born in our family, only 1 was a c-section and that was for a breech baby, so a planned c-section rather than emergency. I wonder if it’s because we are all tall - I’ve noticed taller women seem to find giving birth easier, a wider pelvis perhaps??

toomanyleggings · 27/12/2023 23:47

Having two babies with no help or pain relief ( not through choice) made me realise that Mother Nature has its own agenda. You can plan and try but you’re pretty much going to have to go along with whatever is thrown at you.

rach2713 · 27/12/2023 23:57

Ive had 4 natural births but all very different 2 was induced as 1 was over due and 2nd was because i had pre-eclampsia which i was given to a certain time to have baby or it would be a c- section had a back to back birth and my last baby was very text book no problems brilliant birth. I think it has a lot to do with how your body is made and how it takes to labour i just went with wat needed to be done no birth plan was just open to anything mainly had just gas and air and alot off huming 😂😂

PurplePosies · 28/12/2023 00:05

Luck, genetics and medical intervention I think - I was dead set on a natural birth, did a hypnobirthing course, then got gestational diabetes. I was railroaded into early induction when I knew my baby wasn't ready. I used the hypnosis for 12 hours of induced labour before my son became distressed and I ended up with an EMCS. Unfortunately, I had a terrible reaction to the anesthesia, suffered massive blood loss and missed a lot of his first few days.

You can plan all you like, but sometimes it just doesn't work out. I was that annoying mum with an actual birth plan and it went to hell - plan by all means, but don't count on it going as expected would be my advice now.

UsingChangeofName · 28/12/2023 00:14

Huge amount is down to luck, I agree with virtually everyone.
Genetics will play a part. Things like going in to pregnancy in the first place a healthy weight are going to help a bit, as are attending appointments and following advice, but ultimately, so much is out of your control.

EmmasDilemmas · 28/12/2023 00:23

Definitely luck plays a huge role as does the paths that your initial luck takes you down. My first was spontaneous labour but with meconium in my waters so doctors recommended syncotin to get baby out as fast as possible and an epidural. Labour was really hard and I needed ventouse to get him out. But it was fast and I recovered well. Second baby was a totally different experience. I had an unplanned but really positive home birth. She was born after a couple of hours of contractions which never got long enough or close enough to hit the triggers where they told me to go to hospital, followed by around 20 minutes where it was intense but nowhere near as painful as my first (epidural masked) birth. I didn’t do anything different for either birth but my baby did and therefore my doctors did too.

wanttokickoffbutcant · 28/12/2023 00:57

I had no plan of what I wanted except a hospital birth with pain relief (they told me to wait) so had a bath at home when I started to get contractions, did my hair etc...made our way to hospital, all good. Was 7cm the first time I was examined so they wouldn't give me any drugs other than gas and air and I wanted all the drugs!! It was a quick birth but it bloody hurt.

ChampionWorrier21 · 28/12/2023 01:16

Massively down to luck.
I never really understand why women have birth plans - particularly with a first baby, you have no way of predicting how it’s going to go. Yes, if there are particular things you do/don’t want, you should make them known but I had a friend who had a plan detailing almost every moment of the birth which I thought was mad. Needless to say, it didn’t go how she thought it would at all.

My plan with both births was to go with the flow and I had two easy, straightforward births- I think having no expectations hugely reduced any potential anxiety if things had gone awry.

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