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

Pregnancy alone weakens the pelvic floor unfortunately.

Labour like painful periods and menopause is seen as another thing women should just get on with. There is still an underlying 'don't scare them' to the classes when actually surely it's better to be fully informed.

I had a forceps birth , I was 21 had been in labour over 24 hours at that point and it was frightening and painful, after everyone was very dismissive (nurses and family) It's wrong women should be prepared before making decisions about their own labour.

I did go on to have two more vaginal births which felt much better because I knew what to expect.

I'm so sorry what an awful experience for you. Please do insist on seeing someone to get help with the incontinence though.

I know C section can seem like a godsend and clearly in your case it would have been. But they do have risks. I had a terrible wound infection from mine. I had severe complications as a result and it didn't heal for months. Unfortunately lots of things can go wrong either way

OP, I have had four births.....

First one was vaginally, but slow to progress so was put on a drip to speed up contractions...ended up in theatre to repair a 3a degree tear. No long lasting consequences of this. I healed well thankfully. DS is 18 in a few months time...

Second birth vaginal too. Ended up with a second degree tear but it was fairly straightforward for a birth compared to the first.

Third was very fast vaginal birth. But...second degree tear. Again 🫣

Fourth and final birth....EMCS due to placental abruption. 31+4w. Took ages the recovery, plus the trauma where I needed counselling afterwards from the perinatal mental health team. It wasn't a walk in the park.

Don't go into CS thinking it's straight forward. I have had complications with both types of births. I just wanted to illustrate multiple birth outcomes from one mum.

C section and still experiencing pain and issues with certain parts of my abdomen being numb 3 years on - doctors said its normal. All childbirth come with a risk of complications.

I had an elective caesarean as I had an extremely tight cervix with no softening up on the due date. The obstetrician made the recommendation. The day of the Caesar was lovely and I had a birth support person. I remember everything. It was painful on day 3 but was otherwise straightforward and I was back to my regular walks pushing a pram by week 2.

My sister who similarly had a tight cervix was made to do trial of labour for both pregnancies but ended up with emergency caesareans after 30 + hours and being too tired to go further. She was given a GA for both as they were emergencies.

Interestingly, my subsequent Mirena and hysterescopy insertion attempts failed due to the same tight cervix not coming to the party.

So looking back, I made the right birth decision for me.

I’ve had three sections, and almost died during one of them with a 5 litre blood loss, sepsis and a 5 week hospital stay with an intensive care spell. C Sections are not a walk in the park!

@barbiegirl881 yes! I have a prolapse too and it's extremely annoying (although common after any kind of delivery). Yet another thing to add to my list of NCT beef. I cannot believe they told me my hair would fall out but not my effing bladder!!

@Sept2024 I don't know if you're the same as me but I take comfort from stories like all the PPs who had forceps and were ok. They don't use them lightly, they use them more safely than at any point in history and make every effort to minimise complications. There's about a 10% risk of OASI and of those people 70% will make a good recovery. They have to weigh that up against all the risks of C-section at full dilation as I say.

When the baby is in difficulty during labour, they do everything they can to protect their hearts. Because they can't just breathe more like we can, they start diverting oxygen from their brain. That's why they try to expedite delivery as soon as the CTG trace isn't reassuring. Forceps are a blunt instrument (literally) but they are very good at getting babies out.

I say all this in case you are like me and spend ages ruminating wishing you'd made a different decision. I've done a lot of reading up because I needed to understand what happened to me.

This is why I refused to do NCT and went for Baby Club instead. It was actually neutral. I’d have spent my time at NCT rowing with them.

I had a c section with zero complications. I was back riding my horse after 3 weeks. The other women went for spontaneous vaginal and all had issues. One nearly died. All because of the time of year we gave birth, which left the wards understaffed and unable to provide care in good time.

forceps are brutal. They were invented in the 16th century and were designed to save the baby at the expense of the mother because, in the days of primogeniture, a son was the thing - wives can be replaced.

I am so sorry you had that experience. Time will heal.

I feel misled in that I was explicitly told in my NCT that prolapse was rare when it is apparently very very common.

I was a very high performing athlete prior to my birth experience, now I can’t even jog without it pain. 100% would have chosen a c-section if I knew.

It took six months of five times a week Perifit usage before I stopped having insane bladder spasms.

Obs anaesthetist. Only 1 in 9 births are via forceps in the UK (11%), which I don't think most would deem "very common". Lots have incontinence just be nature of being pregnant/pushing for extended periods of time it's not necc the forceps themselves. Of course lots of people will be in theatre, its to look after you and baby in an emergency situation. Just as many will be there again if you want a csection. I'm sorry you're struggling, most issues resolve with time, so stay positive, make sure you don't get constipated x

Theres a lot of misinformation spouted by NCT unfortunately, they guilt the crap out of women for having epidurals its infuriating. Prolapses can easily result from just being pregnant, I've anaesthetised for many prolapse ops that have only ever had csections...any surgery isn't without the risk of chronic pain

I was induced but didn't need any forceps or ventouse thankfully. I only know one woman who needed a ventouse for one of her babies. I don't think it's that common, but it's also not rare. I know a few women that wished they had a vaginal birth rather than a c section. Either way comes with complications.

Also, I really really resent @Squeezetheday : "so respectfully OP I don’t think you should be scaring people". FFS. How is she scaring people? We are all having a very civilised discussion about the wide variety of birth experiences.

I think it is really important not to downplay the kind of horrific fecal incontinence issues that are reserved for people who have sustained OASI though. People always say earnest things like 'oh everyone has to cross their legs when they sneeze after having a baby' in a sort of well-meaning way as if that's what we're concerned about. It's more the potentially pooing on the floor in Sainsburys that worries us. I think if people involved in obs and gynae were also aware of the colorectal and physio follow-up then these tears would be taken a lot more seriously. And I'm sorry but forceps do exacerbate them because they can cause nerve damage. Continence is a multi-factorial thing and the people with issues normally have nerve damage as well as muscle damage

1 in 9 seems very very common to me.

Sorry pressed send too quickly.

So I do see the need for forceps but I do think we shouldn't brush off what people who've had these tears have been through by making out it wasn't the forceps or that issues are universal.

No one should be having to cross her legs or worry about defecating herself after birth without having appropriate supports and follow ups in place.

I was able to see a private physio, but many can’t and they are few and far between?

I think many of us are furious because we simply weren’t told of the risks and then those concerns were downplayed as “this happens to everyone”.

I wonder what the stats are?

1)Firstly about what kind of birth you had, how many % have no intervention, how many % are cut, how many % have forceps etc.

2)Plus, how you feel. Was it good, 4/10, whether you had a pain free water birth and up horse riding 3 days later, or a good c/s or a bad c/s and how you feel the whole experience was, how good was the medical care.

3)How can we make it all better?

Yes exactly I've spent a fortune on private physio and little gadgets like perifit and kegel8. NHS follow up just did a bum scan, told me I still had a sphincter defect and then gave me a physio appointment where they told me to do kegels. I've done kegels every day since I was 15, excluding the week after my son's birth. Useless! Useless. This is what I mean about not downplaying what people have been through- just because we've been discharged from hospital doesn't mean we'll be ok given time.

Shit happens, OP. Some births require intervention. My first was forceps in theatre, my second was a 10 minute squeeze with no pain relief. Both required episiotomies. I am not unsympathetic - I had sadness about my first too. What you need is to come to terms with what happened, and accept that it didn’t look like what you wanted. What you don’t need to do is try and “make people aware” or encourage people to choose ELCS for no reason other than the fact a stranger on the internet had a bad experience.

It might be useful to share with FTMs that epidurals dramatically increase the requirement for instrumental intervention and CS. There is lots of data on that and academic journal articles on why that is.

I get that this is your way of coping with your birth disappointment/trauma.

This is a very difficult discussion. I think the problem is that very many women to have relatively trouble free births, but it's quite difficult yet to talk about it because it's very easy to seem smug and unsympathetic even if you're just stating facts. We need to have an open and non judgemental conversation about birth choices, but it is very difficult.

I’m so sorry for your experience. I almost opted for planned c-section due to hearing experiences like this. I had a friend who had a difficult c-section recovery shortly before my son’s birth which helped me reconsider my options.

My son’s birth ended up being unmedicated, no interventions and no tears. Although emotionally traumatic due to poor staffing in the hospital.

Everyone’s births will be different and there’s no predicting what you will get. I think the most important thing is to go in informed, with birth preferences and someone who advocates for you.

I think we can make it better by educating women antenatally so they don't feel like they've been railroaded into things. I would have probably made the same choice if I knew everything as, on balance, I'm alright and so is my son but not everybody feels the same, particularly if they have ongoing problems and can't afford private physio. The birthfacts website is a good resource.

We could also increase understanding of what it's like to be injured in that way. It really is a very isolating experience- I didn't feel I could ask for help after my son was born because in society's view I hadn't had 'major surgery', even though I'd been sewn up in theatre for hours and lost 3 litres of blood.

Sorry you’re feeling bad about your experience but you can’t really ‘warn off’ expectant mothers, they need to consult their midwives and doctors not be scared by random forum posts - nor is it worth ‘regretting’, it is what it is and you have your lovely baby here safe.

I also had a hard first labour with all the interventions you describe and worse, but knew it was possible esp with first births. I’m still pleased to have had a vaginal birth as it’s so much better for the baby in terms of their exposure to microbes through the birth canal and future health. My kids are rarely sick and I often wonder if it was the combo of vaginal birth and breast feeding. Who knows. The data certainly would back this up.

I’ve had friends who had awful c sec complications and generally taken much longer to recover so that’s certainly no walk in the park either.

For me, it was about perspective; yes it was rough on my body but my baby survived and so did I. That was all that mattered to me.

Can you got to a women’s health physio to help with recovery?