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Childbirth

Share experiences and get support around labour, birth and recovery.

Original poster

All that matters is a healthy baby...

51 replies

foxytocin · 04/05/2009 21:26

no it bloody well doesn't. Well that is what I thought when I heard a health visitor tell a bunch of new mums this the other day.

I would have also liked to come out of it with an intact fanjo, and not felt like a survivor from the front line 3 weeks after giving birth. Not to mention the mental scars that persist till today.

was that too much to ask?

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TrillianAstra · 04/05/2009 21:27

Healthy mother is also rather important, I agree.

piscesmoon · 04/05/2009 21:40

You want a healthy mother too but I don't think the actual birth is that important.

ilovemydogandMrObama · 04/05/2009 21:46

My GP used this line too

What it means is, 'I don't have enough time to talk about it with you, got a waiting room full of really sick people...'

So incredibly patronising..

lisad123 · 04/05/2009 21:49

i hate that saying, it suggests that there is something VERY wrong if you have a child with SN

Wheelybug · 04/05/2009 21:52

I say something along these lines when people ask about my births (perhaps I phrase it a bit differently 'its the end result that counts'). I ended up with 2 c-secs because I appear not to go into labour at all and both times really really wanted a v. natural birth (no drugs, pool, aromatherapy etc).

I think (or hope...) that this is what tehy are trying to get across to first timers - not to feel you have failed if things don't go according to plan.

Of course, a healthy mother is obviously v. important too.

TheCrackFox · 04/05/2009 21:52

I also hate this saying. Are we not allowed any feelings about childbirth? Of course a healthy baby is important but so is the physical/mental health of the mum.

AitchTwoOh · 04/05/2009 21:58

hate it too. i was very lucky to have healthy babies and two very different births. i do understand what people are aiming to say when they trot that line out but it's so lazy and unthinking and incorrect. if the end result of a labour is a healthy baby and a traumatised woman, then the medical personnel involved should not consider themselves to have done a great job that day.

Tamlin · 04/05/2009 22:03

I got told this by my health visitor after I confessed to lingering nightmares about the birth - don't laugh, but I kept dreaming that the horrible consultant who got him out was standing outside my house or over DS with a big knife.

I'm still cross about the whole 'Well, you've got a healthy baby and that's all that matters!', because well, it's only true if you regard the mother and her body as a kind of fleshy incubator, right? Who cares what damage is done to the incubator provided the baby is got out successfully?

(Bitter? Me? )

AitchTwoOh · 04/05/2009 22:05

don't you dare be embarrassed, they sound like very frightening dreams, plainly the result of trauma, and she sounds like a shit HV.

stillenacht · 04/05/2009 22:08

agree lisad123

Original poster
foxytocin · 04/05/2009 22:13

agree with Aitch. i felt stupid having antenatal depression with my second because i thought i was over the birth of my first.

on friday i met a lady who suffered AN depression because of birth trauma with the first. it was a relief to realise i wasn't being stupid. that it was , for lack of a better word, normal.

OP posts:
Original poster
foxytocin · 04/05/2009 22:14

post was to Tamlin. to me you sound like you are traumatised.

OP posts:
StealthPolarPig · 04/05/2009 22:18

I think it's fine if it's how you feel about your birth - if not then it's patronising and wrong!

theyoungvisiter · 04/05/2009 22:18

Interestingly I clicked on this just after teh "happy mummy, happy baby" thread.

They are two crappy sides of the same bullshit coin - albeit from opposite perspectives - and both equally untrue and unhelpful.

Both are saying that the mother's feelings must be totally subsumed to her child.

Sometimes I feel like wearing a sign saying Yes I Have a Baby But Do You Know What, I Also Think About Other Things Sometimes and I Have a Life in My Own Right and Feelings in My Own Right and Rights in My Own Right So Sod Off With Your Stupid Generalisations.

but it would be a rather big sign.

StealthPolarPig · 04/05/2009 22:20

maybe "more than just a mum" would be more succinct?

MrsMcJnr · 04/05/2009 22:20

I agree I am expecting my 2nd in a different country and I am really nervous about the birth due to their love of medicalised births here, it is the last thing I want and yet so many people have thrown that line at me. Is it so much to ask for a healthy baby and an experience you feel good about? after all, the experience impacts greatly on your whole family life, the baby's early weeks etc. I can see how you would go to hell and back and not care as long as your baby is safe but I think it is prefectly acceptable to want that not to be the case.

sweetkitty · 04/05/2009 22:25

I detest that phrase too especially when it was said a lot to me when I was expecting my third girl "oh it doesn't matter as long as it is healthy" and if she wasn't what would we do sell her?

I am always told how lucky I am having quick labours but they are traumatic quick labours and the first wasn't very pleasant (under statement) but I am not allowed to say anything as at least I had a "natural" birth.

theyoungvisiter · 04/05/2009 22:30

is it just me or does More than Just a Mum sound a bit rude?!

Somehow I see it in sparkly letter on a tight-fitting hot pink t-shirt, as worn by a post-boob-job lady in her upper 50s.

StealthPolarPig · 04/05/2009 22:31

hmmmmmm
no it's just you

cory · 04/05/2009 22:44

I have to confess I might well have said this at the time- but then I was sharing a room with a girl who had already had to go through labour with two stillborn babies and I knew there was something wrong with mine

also, I know this is wrong for this thread- but if I have to be perfectly frank, I'd be prepared to go through labour again tomorrow and have things an awful lot worse than I ever did, if that meant my two children did not have to be disabled and destined to live their lives in constant pain

but that can't be done

dd is traumatised by having spent so many years in pain. I do wish I could go back and have some of that trauma myself instead.

emkana · 04/05/2009 22:48

I have found it very interesting when pregnant with ds how people started to stumble over their words... because we knew there was something "wrong" so the "healthy baby all that matters" line just didn't work...

I agree with cory really, even though I am so unbelievably lucky to say that ds's problems are relatively minor

cory · 04/05/2009 23:15

thing is: unless you have a healthy baby, you're not going to get a healthy mother

I had perfectly decent birth experiences and I'm still worn out 12 years later

you often hear people saying how essential for the child it is to have a healthy mother

even more essential the other way round imo

idontbelieveit · 04/05/2009 23:33

I was very traumatised after the birth of dd1 and she was very healthy (after a worrying 12 hours). It took me ages to get over her birth. With dd2 the birth was a great experience but she has ongoing disabilities now (she's 3 months) and I'm feeling guilty about having a great birth and I would gladly go through what I went through with my first birth if dd2 could have no health problems as a result. What a stupidly irrational thing to think!
Reading that back i sound quite mad

The thing is I would rather my children were unscathed than I was but I do agree with the OP it's a stupid generalisation.

PaulaYatesBiggestFan · 04/05/2009 23:35

sweetkitty ooooh yes!!!

Me and my million boys 'all that matters is a healthy baby'

'COOOOO EEEEEEEE i knowwwwwww'

idontbelieveit · 04/05/2009 23:40

cory, i xposted with you. Glad i'm not the only one who feels like this.