does your mother's experience of childbirth have any hereditary impact on your own?

[elportodelgato]

I ask as it sounds like my mum had a hell of a time when I was born and I really don't want to go through the same thing with my first!

I know a lot of the birth experience is down to the treatment you receive / decisions made by your midwives / doctors but is there any correlation between a mother's experience of birth and her daughters?

Come to that - is there any correlation between a mother's experience of pregnancy as well? My mum keeps saying "well I felt like xxxx when i was pregnant so I expect you will too" but actually I have had lots of side effects which she never experienced and vice versa.

Possibly this is just me wanting to have my OWN experience and not replicate hers, but perhaps people have examples they can share?

Thanks!

My births were totally different to my mums. Obviously the care was different, ie she was encouraged to lie down rather than being mobile. But I had far longer births than she had - loads of false labour etc. Obviously we shared a lot of symptoms when pregnant, though that's common across all pregnant women!

I think you have to plan the birth that YOU want and not worry about history repeating itself.

One thing I did have though, was some 'competitive' streak with regard to pain relief. My mum had me and one of my brothers without anything other than G&A and I always thought "if she can do that, so can I!". I got fairly close with DS. And topped her with DD when I didn't even have the G&A. I KNOW it's not a competition, but my mum is fairly competitive about these things and it was nice to 'beat' her lol.

My mum pushed me and my brother out v easily & quickly. I had my 2 with pre-eclampsia and cs each time...

Not here. My mum had awful births, all 3 of her daughters had lovely home water births.

She never had ms and two of her daughters got it badly (one had hg).

Interesting question! With regards to pregnancy my mum, sister and I have had very similar pregnancies i.e. mild nausea, tiredness and constipation.

Mum had easy births - 9 and 7hrs labours with DSis and I.

I had a straightforward birth too, 28 hrs in total but 13.5 hours in active labour so a bit longer. Both said we thought it would be a lot worse.

DSis had two long labours (days) due to inefficient contractions caused by the position of her uterus.

Novicemama, just remember that you don't have to be induced if you don't want to. Some women (quite a few on here I think) choose to go over the 'recommended' 10-14 days and usually have placenta function monitoring to make sure things are oK. I believe that in France they let you go 3 weeks over? So if you don't want it, don't be pushed into it.

Cheerfulvicky, I know 2 people very well who were induced due to PE and both had fairly straightforward births. They both had to have epidurals due to high BP which meant they both needed assisted deliveries and had stitches etc. But both recovered very well from the birht. One went on to have full blown eclampsia after the birth but that's another scare story

I don't think there are many similarities between us actually. Mum remembers her only pregnancy symptom as being feeling a little faint!! I didn't have a particularly enjoyable 1st pregnancy but had a much better second pregnancy. My mum had a long drawn out labour with me (I am her only) and ended up with an emergency c section. DS was a very short first labour, and DD was a straight forward induction. I'd like to give birth again!

Umm, re: 'active births'. I ended up flat on my back with my feet up in stirrups (with back to back baby) in 2005. Wish I'd had one of those new fangled enlightened midwives!

My mum sailed through 5 labours. With me I was breech and she had a 'painless' labour delivering me vaginally. The others were all 'normal' deliveries, very quick with no pain relief. My first labour was 2 hrs, quite straightforward, I only had G & A. Can't comment on this one as I haven't gone through it yet, but hoping it will be quick aswell.