I regret choosing vaginal birth

[Sept2024]

Calling all expecting mums- I gave birth vaginally and I feel misled. I needed ventouse, episiotomy and forceps and ended up with a third degree tear. I needed to go into a theatre FULL of staff for stitches without my baby afterwards and now suffer incontinence as a result of my tear.

i wasn’t told how very common it is to need an instrumental birth.

if I could go back in time I would have gotten a c section. I just want first time mums to be aware of what can happen if you’re unsure how to give birth to help your decision making because I didn’t know how common it was really. It was honestly horrible

I had a natural birth. DS got stuck, they lost his heartbeat and we needed ventouse and an episiotomy in a hurry.

I was stitched, which took about three weeks to heal, and since then, have had no issues. I healed faster than if I'd had a section. My scar is tiny and not visible.

OP, you don't say how far pp you are but if you are still having issues after a few months, you should talk to your gp. These things can usually be fixed. Please don't suffer in silence.

4 home births and no problems for me. I'm sorry it went so bad for you but c sections also can come with multiple problems as my sister and cousin found out and my cousin still has major problems 2 years on

I have had four vaginal births, no interventions and not one stitch. It really is different for everyone :)

I was induced and had a natural birth, I had a small tear that didn't need stitches and a graze.

Both healed exceptionally quickly - I was back riding my horse 3 days post partum and had half a day's hunting a week later.

My induction was such a positive experience and had I had a c section these things would have been impossible.

I also had an instrumental birth and a 3rd degree tear and feel misled. They said maybe one sentence about forceps at NCT and nothing about long-term consequences of tearing into your bum, just dark allusions to ‘severe tears’. I had some idea it could happen, but assumed they’d just sew you up and you’d skip off. Nope!

I’m 8 months pp and HOPEFULLY seem to have escaped any life-changing consequences, but I have had to have an insane amount of embarrassing bum physio to get to this point and I know it can decline as you age. I’ve been told I must never have another vaginal birth.

I really feel that it’s mad how I paid so much for antenatal classes and had SO MUCH contact with midwives antenatally and nobody told me this could happen. As an obstetrician you should be able to walk in when things are going tits-up and know that the woman has an overview of what the different interventions entail and can consent properly. Shoving an iPad in my face when I’ve been pushing for 3 hours with a list of possible complications I’ve never been made aware of isn’t consent.

The problem is that c-section is viewed as something that’s done ‘to’ you, whereas vaginal birth is seen as something that ‘happens’, even if they have to drag the baby out by its head, so they only feel the need to warn you about c-sections.

However, I will say that I don’t think I would have done anything differently on the day. For every world where I had a planned c-section or a herbal Enya water birth with no complications, there’s one where I had a 4th degree tear, a dead baby, a seriously disabled baby etc etc. C-section at full dilation is also not to be taken lightly and is COMPLETELY different to even an EMCS. Look at what happened to Louise Thompson.

I was angry at the doctors for a long time but I’m zen about it now. I’ll never forgive the NCT. They are a deeply political organisation masquerading as neutral and should have no influence on policy. I cried and cried for weeks after his birth because I was convinced he didn’t know who I was because we didn’t have a ‘golden hour’ and they went on about how important this was at great length.

Things will get better OP. There’s lots of Facebook groups etc you can join for support, but I actually find that floundering around in it doesn’t help. I’m trying to get back to the things I enjoyed before and be in the moment more with my baby. It’s so hard. xxx

I had a C-section and I think maybe you have 'the grass is greener' a little. CS is serious abdominal surgery and not without risks, complications and long-term effects.

It was honestly horrible.

Childbirth is life-threatening, serious business. However you do it.

I’m really sorry this happened op.
Kindly - it is with hindsight you say this. A friend of mine had an elective c section and nearly died through massive blood loss and ended up in intensive care. Her DH was told it was 50/50 whether she would survive. She now has ptsd.
I had forceps and episiotomy and I’m fine.

I'm sorry OP. I absolutely could not do forceps or instruments. I have endo and have had a lot of painful rummaging around down there.

Hugs to @Bubbles332 - i went to Bump & Baby classes abd left fuming almost every time. Same thing - highly political in how they presented things.

I had a c section and absolutely straightforward recovery. After 3 days of labour I had nothing left in me to push with. I'm sure I would have had a nightmare labour if I'd gone on with it.

I'm not sure how many women would expect to be horse riding 3 days after birth and you must be on the tail-end of the bell curve to be doing so, even with a straightforward delivery.

Tbh the c section felt awful, I hated it. But at least I hadn't been fed a load of shit about what an amazing nurturing and connected experience it was going to be.

(And we were all safe, and my nethers didn't get even more fucked up than they are.)

Childbirth has been made into such a political act, and there are so many women doing other women a disservice by prancing about saying oh the natural way is great, no problems, we should all do it that way, you'll be up and about deep cleaning your kitchen and baking sourdough loaves 20 minutes later. Fucking shocking some of them are midwives and should know better.

My first birth was induced, ventouse, episiotomy and 6+ weeks recovery as stitches got infected. I was pretty low at that point. I went on to have my second and she was 6 weeks prem came fully naturally none of the above. It felt like my body knew what to do and the whole experience was quite healing!

I apologise for the length of this in advance.

I had two vaginal births. I had a terrible experience with my first. I had to have a drip to speed things up because there was meconium in my waters and I ended up pushing for 2 hours and had a 3rd degree tear. I wanted to avoid pain relief, especially an epidural and had to have one anyway to go to theatre to be stitched. My midwife kept telling me not to be a martyr!

I also waited 5 hours to be taken to theatre, where I just had to sit bleeding on the bed with my legs spread, I had a fever and I felt like I was dazed, they were putting cold flannels and fans on me and didn’t know what was happening.
I remember my mum saying there was too much blood and something was wrong, but they dismissed her (she had 9 children). When I was taken to theatre almost the full bed was covered in blood, sitting in puddles.

They told me afterward my iron levels were ‘slightly’ low so they would give me some iron tablets. I was given 1 in the hospital and sent home with none. I kept telling them I felt like I was winded and couldn’t breathe and like a knife was being put through my head whenever I stood up. They told me I was fine, and forced me to walk around the ward etc after the epidural wore off.

When my midwife came out the next day I told her how I was feeling and she took some blood. She came back the next day extremely angry, saying I should never have been sent home as my hemoglobin levels were only 7.2, they had been 6.8 in hospital. Based on the measurements taken of my blood loss in the notes, I had haemorrhaged but nobody bothered to tell me. She wanted to send me back for a blood transfusion but I refused, I just didn’t want to go back as I was treated terribly (too much to go into). She agreed to try iron tablets and because of the high amount I was taking, I ended up constipated for nearly 2 months. I also ended up with multiple infections and lots of different antibiotics etc, probably because of how long I had to wait to go to theatre.

I probably should have done something about the way things went but I just wanted to try forgetting about it and it may sound extreme but I felt like I had some form of PTSD. I can remember that feeling of sitting dazed on the bed for hours and having no energy to move or hold my baby, shaking from the pain in the theatre when I had to sit up straight to get the spinal and feeling the blood pour out of me like a tap.

However, my second birth was a lot better. I had an appointment with a consultant to discuss an elective section because of my tear etc, but felt a bit pressured into having a vaginal birth. I was induced early due to some health issues and the induction took 4 days. They did have it noted on my file that I was at risk for haemorrhaging and said I couldn’t be left alone. But other than being completely exhausted from the 4 days in hospital, it was much more relaxed and I was able to shower straight away etc and had no theatre to go to. I only had a 2nd degree tear so was stitched in the delivery room and I healed quickly. I was really glad in the end that I had another vaginal birth.

Sorry again for the length, but my point is that one bad experience won’t necessarily repeat itself. Future births can be better.

I had two vaginal births and one c-section and, even though my first vaginal was forceps & episiotomy, subsequent infection and sepsis I would take that over the c-section. The recovery was awful, I’m left with a horrid wonky scar and overhang which I hate and the whole experience, for me, was vastly more traumatic.

I had a c-section and recovered fine, was up and about within a few days. I was very happy with my experience My scar is just a slight ridge. I think you can get very unlucky either way.

I’m really sorry OP, thats utterly awful.

I'm so sorry OP. I agree with you. First baby was an induced labour and EMCS. Recovery was very easy and was out and about and feeling relatively normal less than two weeks later. My second was a VBAC with foreceps. I was left with pain from stitches, an anal fissure and urinary incontinence for many weeks. I won't be having anymore children but I would have opted for a CS if I'd had another.

It sounds like you've had a traumatic experience @Sept2024 and I'm sorry to hear that. You don't say how long post party you are, but i don't think that really matters - please do seek some support. Women live with complications often unnecessarily. Your health visitor (if you have a good one, luckily ours were fantastic) should be able to help point you in the right directions, or I was referred for women's physio (as a result of a rectocele) by my GP - I looked on the surgery website to see what the individual GPs interests were and discovered that my named GP actually has a special interest in women's health - bonus! Physio helped a lot for me, but they also haven't ruled out the idea of surgical repair in the future.

I think a lot of women unfortunately go into birth with a view of mood lighting, breathing the baby out and it all being a calm affair, being in a place of control - because that's how it's sold to us.
In reality, unless you do base jumping or something as a hobby, giving birth is probably the most risky thing a woman will ever do and there often comes a point where whatever is needed to get baby out, needs to be done and you have little to no control over that, whilst being fully aware of everything that is going on.

Please do seek some support if you haven't already - both for the physical effects and the psychological ones too 💐

I'm so sorry you feel that way OP. I hope that support is available to help you with the complications you are suffering, although I know this isn't always the case.

I always feel like I'm not supposed to say this, but I don't have a single regret about choosing a C-section over a vaginal delivery. It was completely the right birth for me. I also feel lucky in some respects that I had my child after most of my good friends had their kids and that they were so open about their births - I was all too aware of some of the horrendous complications that can occur.

unfortunately it’s a risk with childbirth. I had an emcs first time and loads of incontinence issues which thankfully did resolve after a number of months and then a VBAC second time with no issues.

Episiotomy and ventouse over here. I was lucky (in a weird way) that a few of my close friends had been VERY honest with me about birth in a way that the bloody hypnobirthing movement and bump & baby classes were not.
As a few of my friends had been left with prolapses, I asked about this in b&b and it was hugely, hugely played down. Despite us all knowing someone with one, and how bad the consequences of them could be.
My birth was horrible due to how stretched the NHS is - days of waiting in a cubicle to be induced and poor/incorrect communication (for example being told the wrong reason I was being induced) and I also don’t think we are honest with women about how difficult childbirth is. Personally I’d prefer we scared women upfront so they can make informed choices, rather than leave them traumatised.
I would add that my friends with c sections have had even more difficult recoveries, I don’t envy them either.
im really sorry OP, it’s horrible. Not sure how far into post Partum you are, but it does get better.

I had 2 x VB. The first was in a private hospital which specialised in natural birth. I had a large tear (no episiotomies done there) which was promptly stitched and caused no problems at all. DS2 born at home, I cooked dinner that night and went shopping for presents for the midwives the next morning. 30 years on I have had no continence issues.

I had two vaginal births without anaesthetic and I was absolutely fine. My mother had three. Maybe we were lucky but all these scare stories worry me.

I've had a vaginal birth without 'help', vaginal with forceps and an emergency c section. The recovery from forceps was definitely worse than the section. They see me up wonky too I had like this extra hole. Sex was painful, everything was painful until my next baby came along and that labour seemed to sort it.

I say thé recover was better from the fully natural one but they refused me even gas and air and I almost gave birth in the corridor (literally had his head out on the bed being pushed into delivery room!) because they kept telling me I wasn't in labour.

C section left me incontinent and with prolapse but that was from all the labouring I did before the emergency section.

Fucking terrible care with every single one.

If I were ever to have another baby I would have a planned section. Labour with the NHS in the state it is is not something I want to face ever again

Two vaginal deliveries, just gas and air. First I had a tear and to be honest the stitching hurt more than the delivery of the baby! Super quick recovery on both- after dc2 I was home and cooking 6 hours later and doing the school run 2 days later. My friends who had CSs had difficult recoveries and my niece almost died had to be shocked during hers. What I'm saying is- either way can be good or bad. I honestly think it's luck of the draw.

On mn some posters births are a nhs disgrace. @Definitelymaybe93 - her 1st is so awful. Women are being let down. We should talk about all the stuff, in pre-natal care. Like Bubbles says the NCT also gloss over all this, we are leading women astray by not letting them know this stuff to make informed decisions. Anyone who argues that this is all ok has to be questionable.

One of mine was a CS and a ventouse was used (common in CS), I preferred VBs, much easier.

I had a difficult vaginal birth with ventouse the first time, my episiotomy stitches broke down and I took months to heal. However, births are so different for everyone as you see amongst the replies, so respectfully OP I don’t think you should be scaring people when what happened to you is not the reality for all women.

I had a section 9 weeks ago for my second, it’s had its own issues so definitely not the walk in the park people believe it to be!!