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’m so sorry to read this. I also won’t forgive the NCT- at best a waste of money for my family, at worst incredibly dangerous.

I’m sorry OP. U.K. maternity care is not fit for purpose. There is very little consideration for the mothers long term health and wellbeing.

I have seen so many friends with uncomplicated, low risk pregnancies experience the cascade of intervention which resulted in instrumental deliveries or EMCS.

I chose to have both of my children at home. Frankly I consider the first intervention to be walking out the door. They were both very straightforward, easy births. There were no vaginal examinations, the midwives didn’t tell me what to do, my body just did it. I had a second degree tear both times but tearing is natural. Our bodies are designed to do it and healing has gone well.

I would really recommend a home birth if you want to birth on your own terms and without intervention.

Tbh I've just found out I'm pregnant (1st time) and I'm very relieved to hear the positive natural birth stories amongst the terrible ones.

It's scary, without a crystal ball we just can't know what the right choice is.

https://www.nhsinform.scot/ready-steady-baby/labour-and-birth/assisted-birth/helping-your-baby-be-born/
1 in 9

https://www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/labour-and-birth/what-happens/forceps-or-vacuum-delivery/
1 in 8

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=wisdom.nhs.wales/health-board-guidelines/swansea-bay-maternity-file/assisted-vaginal-birth-guidelineswansea-bay-2022-pdfpdf/&ved=2ahUKEwi60rvM5M2KAxXNZ0EAHUJmFXwQFnoECGEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3ZiYCUtZNWxPJ4IQ4cuGBu
8-12%

We do a lot of vaginal repairs for 3rd/4th degree tears just from normal deliveries (below 3rd degree gets sutured in the room without anaesthetist involvement. Theoretically forceps have a reduced risk vs normal delivery as all patients will have an elective episiotomy cut to minimise tearing

You'd be far pushed to find a Dr that would have a home birth. If something goes wrong in labour then it can go caterstrophically wrong in a matter of minutes for either you or baby or both. My brother was a crash section in minutes of dropping his heart rate... he still needed cpr and is profoundly deaf as a result, if he was a home birth he would be dead. Its lovely and rosey when it is, but having seen midwives dealing with neonatal deaths on the home birth team it's horrific

It's a shame your NCT class made you feel that way. I told the leader of ours that I was having an ELCS at maternal request and while the c-section class did cover the number of people in the room it was done in such a way as "don't be alarmed, there will be all these people in the room but they all have a specific role to play for either you or your baby, this is who they will be." I found it quite reassuring.

The prenatal hospital visit on the other hand was disappointing- it was all "look at these fabulous huge rooms, with enormous baths, wardrobes, en suite facilities and a bed for your partner in our midwife led wing." When I asked if I could see the post c-section wards I was told vaguely "oh they're over there, they're just normal bays of 4, partners must leave and not return between 9pm and 9am."

I agree with you! But I knew the risks. I was fully dilated & after 2 hours of pushing he wasn't coming down, they took me down to theatre to do an instrumental delivery. I refused. I only consented to a C-section. Best thing ever. My 2nd was a planned cs & it was glorious. I would forever take a scar on my tummy over a lifetime of pissing and shitting myself.

part of the problem with childbirth, either vaginally or by c-section, is that 'normal' is a retrospective diagnosis. Until nothing did go wrong, it can all go wrong, and due to the nature of what's going on, when it doesn't go to plan it can become quite spectacularly bad quite quickly (if you do enough of them, from time to time you also see 'straightforward' maternal request c-section get more 'exciting' than you'd imagine...anaesthetised for one just this week).

the obstetricians have to warn about the risks with c-sections because they do happen and while most women having babies won't meet anyone who's had the really serious stuff happen, most people working on a labour ward will have seen those complications...probably more than once. That information obviously needs balancing with the risks of a vaginal delivery, but comparing the two can feel a bit like comparing apples and oranges.

the way people use the statistics is interesting - most people on here appear to see the 1:9 chance of needing forceps to assist a vaginal delivery as being unacceptably high. For the women who decide they want a section at fully instead of attempting a vaginal delivery though the chance of having an impacted fetal head is about 1:10...also pretty common, but a surprising number of women feel that's an acceptable to them (a 'proper' impacted head is potentially catastrophic for the baby and also may result in significant pelvic and sometimes perineal trauma to the woman). Women are having increasing numbers of sections (for many reasons) these days too, but the 1:10 risk of having a placenta previa by number 4 (with the associated increased chance of an invasive placenta) doesn't seem too worrysome to lots of women because for that particular risk most women seem to think they'll be in the lucky nine. So it seems that 1:9-10 means different things to different people.

The quality-of-life impacts of a perineal injury are significant for a lot of women, haven't been taken as seriously as they should have been historically and they absolutely need to be factored into decision making, but there just isn't a risk free way to get a baby and placenta out and every single woman will have a different point at which the risks vs benefits of each option shifts for them. With the benefit of a retrospectoscope often people probably would do things differently, but that's just not an option.

Attitudes in general need to change when it comes to childbirth. People suddenly get SO weird about what others want to do with their own bodies.

If someone discusses opting for an elective cesarean without a ‘proper’ medical reasons on here you’ll get scores of people insisting she should NOT be allowed to do that because it’s not what they would choose so it shouldn’t be an option. Ditto home birth. And birth plans… Anyone enquiring about making a birth plan because they want to make informed decisions about their own body is shot down with a ‘how dare you not let the doctors control every aspect’ or mocked with a gleeful ‘hahaha that will go out the window just you wait’ Even threads about consent around male healthcare workers get vile replies.

I feel like attitudes around birth haven’t moved on at all

Bear in mind those NHS stats on assisted deliveries etc are for all births. First time births have a hugely increased risk in comparison. 1 in 3 for forceps and ventouse, between 1 in 3 and 1 in 2 for emergency section. RCOG website has those stats and more stuff.

I’m not minimising your situation OP because I completely agree with you. We are led to believe that a vaginal birth is inherently better and less risky and it really isn’t that simple. I just came on the thread to say don’t lose hope. I spent the first 18 months after my first was born feeling utterly depressed about the effect of forceps on my body. I couldn’t exercise in any meaningful way, had incontinence, couldn’t wear tampons and remained in huge pain from my episiotomy.

a few years (and a second baby born by C-section) on, I’m much improved. I am normally recovered and would still have chosen a section with hindsight, but it may be that these symptoms you are currently experiencing will not be as bad as they are forever, particularly if you are religious with pelvic floors. I totally sympathise with what has happened to you and agree women are misled about the risks of vaginal birth, and really hope things improve for you x

I know a consultant who has had a homebirth. The consultant I saw in my first pregnancy was very happy for me to have a homebirth.

The thing is you never know if the same series of events would happen if a birth was at home and labour was undisputed.

At any rate we all know that birth is not without risk, OP has pointed out that every option carries risks.

As tragic as neonatal deaths are let’s not pretend that they don’t also happen in hospitals.

There is lots of evidence to suggest that Homebirth is a good option for low risk pregnancies.

www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30063-8/fulltext

@Greybeardy thank you, this was so interesting to read and so balanced. I did not know that about impacted fetal heads and I will add that to my 'reasons I will not beat myself up about choosing forceps over EMCS at full dilation' list.

If it's not too personal, I would be interested to know what you would opt for if you were giving birth? @Destiny123 your perspective too would be good.

This is terrifying. So many stories on this thread of women being treated terribly. It’s heartbreaking.
Contemplating having another baby but thinking maybe one is good!!! And my birth wasn’t all that bad like some of these but equally wasn’t a good experience or a positive one.

Hmm. I've never had a desire for biological children and always planned to adopt disabled children (having volunteered since 16), so not thought about it in great detail but -

I think it would be cannula, epidural, natural birth (instrumentally it depends on the surgeon oncall that day... there's a couple I wouldn't want a forceps delivery at all from, but would be happy for them to section me and vice versa, the issue is more that once you're fully you're pretty much having forceps/kiwi as a csection at fully is much higher risk).

There's also a well established understanding, that if you're medical by trade, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong!

.... no clue why anyone would ever choose to labour without an epidural though! Totally unnecessary to suffer for no benefit, they're still by far the best intervention we do in anaesthetics, its great watching being able to change someone someone crying n screaming their head off in pain to 45mins later seeing them grinning and taking selfies or fast asleep

I remember my anaesthetist very fondly. I was extremely pleased to see him 😂.

Thank you for your perspective. It’s interesting because you must see plenty of more straightforward deliveries as well as the ones which end up in theatre or going disastrously wrong.

My brother was a totally undisturbed labour prior to his csection

Oh I 100% am aware the evidence for home births is great for low risk mums, there's lots of evidence that if drs are involved in your birth you're more likely to have interventions....

but the problem with Anaesthetics as a job is we only ever get involved in the labour ward deliveries that something has "gone wrong" for, to varying degrees of mortality. I've only seen 1x normal delivery in the last 12 years (pushed the baby out as I stickytaped her epidural down haha) which was so lovely .... but we have such a warped opinion strongly swayed by the badness that can happen, that can totally skew your opinion

(Was the same when I had my ogd - camera into the stomach, the guys like these are super safe, very routine blah blah blah, I was like duddee I have a v skewed opinion of the fact ive only ever been called to attend peri-arrest situations down here in the basement and he just chuckled

(Re stillbirths, at least if anything bad happens you're in a hosp you have immediate access to resusitares, a whole team of neonatal consultants, obstetricians, anaesthetists, crash teams that will swarm at 2mins notice... something goes wrong at home and you have 2 very panicked midwifes begging a 999 ambulance to hurry up and ship you to the nearest hospital asap... and we all know what ambulance delays are like even with cat a priority calls)

Hehe I always joke we are the most popular people on labour ward

We don't ever see normal deliveries unfortunately (well I've managed to see 1 normal delivery, as I sellotaped her epidural down in 12y) hence we probably have far worse expectations as we only see the "unplanned"/medicalised births

but we still see a lot of normal delivery ladies come via theatres either for tear repairs, removal of pesky placentas that refuse to come out, or post partum haemorrhages that need to come to theatre to stop the bleeding

I had no idea about this. I thought it was purely vaginal births that caused prolapse.

Having a watermelon sitting on your pelvic floor for many many months is going to have huge implications on the muscles, hence why people are often slightly incontinent at the end of pregnancy when cough/laugh etc... that's why they go on and on and on about the importance of doing your pelvic floor exercises

The book Matrescence by Lucy Jones talks in detail about the politics around childbirth in this country and how women are made to feel like they should ‘endure’ childbirth and the pain that comes with it. There needs to be drastic change around how women are educated and the real life complications of childbirth and the associated risks of it all.

I’ve had two planned c-sections and had extremely positive experiences with both - quick recovery and no lasting issues. But I know this isn’t always the case. I do however think that C-sections can offer a greater sense of control in what can feel like a completely uncontrollable and scary situation. They have their place and I have no regrets.

Pregnancy causes chronic strain to the pelvic floor muscles, and the evidence is that pelvic floor exercises can be very effective at reducing the impact of this.

Unfortunately, the strongest pelvic floor muscles in the world can still be irreparably damaged by being ripped down by forceps. The risks of pelvic floor damage from pregnancy, and the risks of pelvic floor damage from vaginal birth, are not identical.

It’s so different for everyone!

I tried so hard to have a vaginal delivery (six days in labour following induction with every method they could offer; pessary, 3x gel, rods inserted into my cervix in an attempt to dilate it, having my waters manually broken, failed epidural and hormone drip) and I still couldn’t dilate past 3cm despite insane contractions every two minutes for the last 24 hours. My baby’s heart rate eventually dropped twice with the huge contractions I was having on the drip so I had to have an emergency section, and I was then readmitted with a wound infection when he was 5 days old. Having a C-section was fucking awful for me, but so was the attempt at vaginal birth so DP and I have decided that we are never having another child as a result of what I went through.

Childbirth is mainly terrible I think, apart from the fortunate few who have a wonderful experience.

none of the available options ever appealed so i didn't have children.