Could i have avoided CS?

[fitnfortyone]

Nearly 10wks now since DS1 was born by emcs and still blaming myself. Have read Showofhands post and feeling similar emotions but slightly different query.

I put off being induced until 40+10. Had support for home waterbirth withdrawn as my bp started to get erratic after 40+2 (although it always went back to normal when i got to hospital for monitoring). On one of my monitoring visits, had a sweep which was successful following 2 previous attempts which went nowhere as I was fully closed up.
Later same evening I started contractions which were agony due to back pain. It took 54 hours to get to 3cm, and another 10 hours to get to 5cm where I stuck. 4hrs later after no progress and baby's heartbeat failing to recover completely following contractions, decision was made to operate. Afaik, LO wasn't actually back to back but was a brow presentation.
What I want to know is : did having the sweep bring on contractions too soon when LO wasn't ready, hence head in wrong position? All through pregnancy, checks showed he was head down ok, and I varied between 3/5 and 2/5 engaged in the final week or so. Could the brow presentation have been picked up during antenatal checks or only on a scan?
Thinking about it still makes me cry as the birth being so far from what I wanted, even though yes, I know I have a lovely baby boy as a result. Reading others' experiences which were similar brings it all back to me too.
But I don't know if my age, my being overweight or anything else could have caused this? Presumably the homebirth would have been ditched long before if my weight/age were contributing factors but have heard that older first time mums can have probs with head engaging?

How do I request my hospital notes as everyone seems to suggest these will help? And are these the ones I would have seen during my hospital stay where b/f and drugs administered were noted down, as if so there wasn't much about the actual birth in there, just the decision made to have emcs following "failure to progress".

Sorry this is such a jumbled up post, just getting all my thoughts down and still probably missed bits out.

Have a look at the Birth Trauma Association website - lots of useful info there including a leaflet on how to request your notes.

Sorry you had a traumatic time. 64 hours of labour sounds horrendous

OMG - I could have posted exactly the same!

DP and I are sure the sweep (I was 41 weeks) made DS come sooner than he would have liked which ended up in an emcs for exactly the same reasons.

I am now pregant again and really don't know what to do. Consultant is suggesting an elective c section on the grounds of my age and it will only be 15 months since previous section (and I think my weight but he hasn't said!)

Sorry not to be able to offer answers, hope you can find some.

A bad presentation certainly isn't your fault. Actually the baby being in a difficult position like that is one of the key causes of maternal death in developing countries,and these are young, skinny, fit women. It's awful and so painful when you have a severe, prolonged back labour. You are a hero for suffering like that for so long. Not many people could stand it. It absolutely was not your 'fault'. You were just unlucky, but lucky you live in a country where there is a solution when the baby gets muddled on the way out!

Giving birth is one of the most scariest things a woman can do. There's little control over it, this is what makes it scary. You can have a perfect birth plan but at the end of the day, there's nothing that anyone can do to make sure things go the way that you want them to. It sounds as though you were getting tired. If you were tired then the chances are your baby was aswell. You had no control over this. We all have ideas of what we want our child's birth to be like but life isn't like this. The hospital were trying to get your baby out safely. Sometimes birth plans don't work out. It's just a plan, not set in stone. Sometimes they have to be changed, sometimes they are forgotten. There's nothing that you could have done to change the way your child was born. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow. I know that you must have felt powerless once the hospital started to interviene in your care, this is completely understandable. They would have respected your wants and wishes as much as they could though and they have helped you to have a healthy child.

Parents have alot of times when they feel powerless. Just go with things. It's never anyones fault, there's no blame. It will work out in the end.

Your story is very similar to my first birth, which I found very hard to cope with. Ds has just had his 3rd birthday but I still relive it with flashbacks every day.

What really helped me, bizarrely, was having another baby. Some women say they can't face the thought of having another child ever again after a difficult birth, but for me it helped me regain some sense of control. I had an elective c-section, and planned every element of it - it was a fantastic experience and the fact it was all chosen by me helped me cope with my demons from the first birth.

What has also helped me come to terms with it is the realisation that both my ds and I would have died 100 years ago - or if we'd tried to have a home birth - so actually we're really lucky to be here.

But it takes a lot of time to come to terms with a traumatic birth, and i think in some ways, like a bereavement, you never actually get over it, you just get better at coping. Sorry if that sounds very negative - the plus side is you do get better at coping!

Your labour sounds exactly like mine (although was also back to back), with the same result.As far as I understood, the problems with a brow presentation are that it can be rectified, but need very strong, quick contractions to force the chin down. Positioning is of little use without strong contractions. These are, however, less likely to happen if the head is not descending and there's no pressure on the cervix, so you're in a catch 22 situation. My contractions were quite strong, but only every 3 mins so not fast enough to get any real momentum going. I was diagnosed as brow before labour, but it doesn't really make a lot of odds because you would still hope for the position to change once contractions begin. Also one of the reasons you went overdue was probably because the baby was in a bad position, so wasn't "ready". I really don't thing for me there was an alternative to a c section and feel happy with the decision.

Congratulations on the birth of your little baby boy!

I had a similar crash cesarean birth like you after 3 days labour, and 40+2 after induction. I also had a water home birth 'planned'. I wracked my brains and beat myself up over it all for ages, and came up with the answer 'no I couldn't have avoided this' - and neither could one quarter to one third of every mother giving birth.
I did have episodes of post traumatic Stress afterwards - flashbacks and the like, but that was due to the really bad health and safety practices within the very old and dilapidated hospital I gave birth in.

It's important to remember that birth is unpredictable. For no apparent reason my DD was in distress, so after all the hard work and days and days of labour, off to theatre we went. Her apgar scores were 9 and 9 - better than most vaginally born babes; I have no idea to this day why she was distressed - I guess she didn't like the contractions - which is her right.

Birth can be really shocking no mater which way it ends up.
I would second EffiePerine's suggestion and have a look at the BTA website, try and get your notes and have a chat with the MW or your OBs about the birth of your baby.

Congratulations again and well done on being a fabulous mum who had abdominal surgery to have her little baby. You did really well Wear your scar with pride and welcome to the smiling tummy club!

Sorry you are having a rough time, you are only 10 weeks in please don't be too harsh on yourself. I felt like you about a year ago.

Does your hospital have a birth reflections service where you can sit down with a midwife and go through what happened? I found it really reasurring speaking to someone about my em cs. I discovered that DS was very distressed which is why they whipped him out so fast. Even the midwife was concerned about the way the birth was going, it wasn't just a scapel happy consultant trying to get it over and done with IYSWIM. I am just pleased we were both ok. 18 months on I am happy to say it really doesn't bother me anymore.

thanks for all the replies - I don't know what service the hospital offers for reviewing, but will have a look at the BTA website for some ideas. Mind you, they've just been placed under review for midwife shortage crisis so dread to think what time they have for admin tasks

I don't know how much tiredness came into it though, as I didn't have any probs with baby's heartbeat etc until they gave me an epi and put me on the drip to increase contractions, which was from midnight to 2pm on the last day once i'd got to 3cm. I spent most of that day catching up on sleep as I couldn't feel a thing!
I know I'm lucky we both survived the experience and my little boy is an absolute delight (when he's not being a little b*gger!), but everything up to the 40wk mark was just so textbook normal I had no reason to assume the birth wouldn't be either, and the community midwives all thought the same. Bless them too, they were gutted for me and came to see me on the recovery ward to make sure we were ok I'm sure I'll get over it in time and I'm having counselling for that and other issues but I really don't think I can go through the experience again, even an elective cs.

You have done amazingly well coping for that long without intervention. It is really difficult when things don't go to plan but just be thrilled with you gorgeous new bundle how he got here does not matter one bit!

Unfortunately this is one of the 1st parenting lesson we can't plan for anything anymore!

I don't personally believe that a sweep would have any affect on the position of your baby. As long as your waters are still intact, babies can and do move around fairly easily in most cases, but sometimes, the little blighters just get into awkward positions and stay there!
There is lots of helpful support and information for women recovering from caesarians/looking at future births at ican-online.net

We can often learn things about birth after the event, and use what we've learned to influence our next birth, but sometimes it doesn't matter how well prepared you are, shit just happens. Not what anyone wants to hear I know, but all we can do is make informed decisions and then leave the rest up to nature and hope that she's kind to us.

You've done NOTHING wrong, and by the sound of it, you were incredibly well prepared and well-informed. Take the time to grieve for the birth that you didn't get, but in the meantime give yourself a pat on the back for what you did achieve. I had 3 sections before finally getting the natural birth that I wanted so I understand your disappointment. It's still very early days though so be kind to yourself.

Fitnfortyone, please don't let this be the reason you don't have any more children! There are lots of reasons not to have any more (money, time, stress), but this shouldn't be one of them. The birth is such a small moment in time compared with the rest of the child's life.

And NO is the answer to your question in your OP, as others have said. Don't blame yourself. There is nothing you could have done.