Have you had a de-brief after a difficult birth? How long after? Did it help you?

[MamaG]

I know I touch on this every couple of months

oh and sorry MamaG I've hijacked your thread.

i think more than two hours without descent in a first birth would mean more help needed,but3 hours plus if mumand baby are not distressed can be for the scond stage

often if an epidural is used, then after full dilation , a woman can be left for an hour for descent, before active pushing begins

there is no hierarchy here,you are allowed to feel bad and your feelings are valid regardless of how bad someone else's experience was

i had a perfectly ok em c.s after a failed induction, but was left heartbroken and ultimately very depressed as no-one listened to me at the time as to how awful i felt, i felt i had not been involved in the birth and my baby had been surgically removed from me, the post epidural pain in my back was crippling,the pain in abdomen was terrifying and the em cs was totally unexpected and had not been on my radar and that i think was a big part of it

Ive never heard of a de-brief - Im intrigued!
Is this just for labours that end in an emcs or not? I had a very traumatic labour, ended in ventous (sp?) and forceps - Im still very traumatised a year on. Could I request a de brief? What is discussed?

a debrief is for anyone who feels traumatised by their birth experience,whether c.s or not.... it can help you understand why things happened the way they did.. women haing an em cs should have it explained fully on the PN ward why they hd a cs, but i think every woman deserves to have answers!phone your hospital and ask PALS how to get a post birht debrief or contact the head of midwifery

Yes I had one after my 1st childs crash section. I think there was a flyer from hospital in discharge pack so I phoned to arrange. It was helpful. Everything seemed to happen so fast and I really needed to clarify things. i think I also had a separate meeting with anaestitist as they had some problems with GA.

Thanks Lulamama - will definately consider ringing hospital up

I had a debrief when I was about 35w pg with dc2, so about 2y after dc1 was born.

It was fantastic. Incredibly worthwhile. I didn't even nknow I needed one until I did the hospital tour (both dc born in the same hospital) and the mw noticed that I was getting quite angry. I wasn't losing it, just behaving in a well-mannered, repressed, British way, but I think that woman really knew her job! She offered me a one-to-one meeting.

We spent about 2h going through my notes, she explained what had happened and why, as far as she was able to. She was honest and forthright about it all, saying "That should not have happened", no attempt at making the hospital out to be right and me wrong. She listend to me, accepted what I had to say and how I felt about it. Was completely non-judgemental.

Afterwards I felt so much happier about the forthcoming labour, and confident, too.

The most important thing she did was to effectively give me permission to say "No." Which was what I did. When I turned up in labour the same two midwives greeted me as had been there with my first baby. I said to one of them "I want you and only you. I don't want her to come anywhere near me." My wishes were respected. Labour no2 was a good and satisfying experience.

Yes, ultimately, having a healthy baby and healthy mum is the important thing about labour. But how you feel about yourself is a very important part about how you function as a mum - as well as all the other aspects of being you. And how you feel about your labour can have a major effect on how your next labours go.

I have an appointment for a 'Birth Reflection' (as they call it) in a couple of weeks. I had thought about contacting the hospital myself after a horrible experience but they phoned me last week - apparently they phone everyone who has a 'category 1' caesarian (didn't know what that was,let alone that I'd had one so maybe a birth reflection is a good idea). I appreciated the call, as although I'd been stewing over it I wasn't sure if I shouldn't 'just get over it' and the call from them made me feel like it was a good idea. I felt much better after the appointment was made, so if you're considering it I would definitely contact whoever you need to to get it off your chest.

Thanks a lot all - I might nab you on FB lulu, sometime

Poledra my DH sounds a lot like yours. He doesn't want to talk about it Any.More.Thank.You. He's firmly in the "you're both ok so get over it" camp

I think I will arrange it. I arranged it a few months ago and then chickened out and cancelled it, I don't think I was ready ot bring everything to a head, felt better having everything bubble under hte surface

lulu I think, like you, as it wasn't on my radar, the sheer shock of having a CS after 2 straightforward VBs was a big part of the trauma I feel/felt.

I had a consultant de-brief when DD2 was 10days old. Way too soon imo but I was such mess my m/w didn't know what else to do. The consultant was more worried about if the procedure/anasthetic had gone wrong and I was in pain. Really wasn't interested in how her staff had treated me. In spite of the m/ws on the ward writing all over my notes that I was traumatised by the procedure. Only good thing was I was told what was actually wrong, and chances of it happening in future, as I wasn't even seen by a doctor prior to discharge so had no idea what had caused it all.

Like Riven, I also contacted Sheila Kitzinger. 10mths later, it was so good to have some one just listen to me, and understand how I felt. However, 6mths after being referred by my GP I'm still waiting on an assesment appointment with psych for post traumatic stress

I had one almost 10 months after having a crash section for my son. I'd had regular flashbacks to the birth most nights since having the section. I've not had one since. It cleared up a lot of questions, and we got appologies for appaling aspects of care from the hospital. (No post-op checks for 3 hours; no pain relief for me until 9 hours after op).

Plus with all the fuss I kicked up (they 'lost' my notes, so I threatened legal action), we had the meeting with the Director of Midwifery, who has now created a new job at the hospital, emplying someone to debrief births as there was no one before.

I had one with a consultant, and it wasn't exactly the closure which I hoped it would be. She was very dismissive, and when we brought up the lack of midwives, she said 'This hospital has gone from delivering 3600 babies a year to 4300 with no corresponding increase in staff, so what do you expect?' We're sitting there agape, thinking 'Some sort of medical care?'

The biggest shock was to find that what they'd written in my hospital notes bore very little reality to what we remember happening. Officially, I apparently only had a five hour labour (despite the fact that they declared me at ten centimetres at 6 am and DS was then born at 10.30 am - with a four and a half hour second stage, I don't think the first stage lasted half an hour, ffs). What actually happened was that I only had a midwife constantly in attendance on me for those five hours - I laboured alone from midnight in the pre-delivery ward with my poor husband desperately trying to hunt down busy midwives. Other stuff got left out of the notes as well (noticeably, all the emergency measures taken to prevent haemorrhage when my uterus was atonal). It was rather hard to discuss the trauma of a rather violent bimanual uterine massage when according to my notes, it never happened.

So, consultant wrote things like 'Claims she was left alone in labour and then claims she was left alone in stirrups post-haemorrhage' all over my notes, and we left even angrier than when we'd arrived. I'm not going back to that hospital without a lawyer in tow.

Very interesting thread - I had no idea this sort of servoce was available. I carried around a lot of negativity and sadness after my DS's birth (failed induction, em cs) but didn't really know what to do with it.

I ended up having hypnotherapy and EFT therapy after my miscarriage at the beginning of this year - it sort of bought everythig to a head and the grief of the mc seemed to combine with grief from the birth.

It worked - the actual session where I had to relive it all wasn't overly pleasant but I felt "cleaned" afterwards. It's not like I think it was great now - far from it, but I can look back on it with less emotion and just focus on the good bits - getting my DS basically. The anger has gone and I have accepted that sometimes bad sitautions occur for no real reason. Shit happens, basically.

I'm now 21 weeks pg and preppingfor my consutant appt. No power on this earth is getting me to repeat the last experience.

Christ alimghty Tamlin that's horrific. Puts my experience in the shade.

Have you pursued any sort of written complaint route?

Sorry that you had a bad experience Tamlin.

However, I have spoke to my gp this morning about a de-brief of dd's birth. She was born via ventouse as the cord was round her neck twice. I had no pushing stage really as she was yanked out though she was fine afterwards, I think though as someone said earlier this was not on my radar and so quite traumatic for me to deal with afterwards.

GP was shocked that no-one had come to discuss the birth whilst I was still in hospital. Never mind, hopefully dc2 will have an easier birth.

Thanks OP for starting this thread and bringing this to my attention.

Just thinking about ds' birth makes me cry, and it was over nine years ago. maybe I should have a debrief too.

I had one in the days after DS was born. We were in hospital two weeks after his birth, and I was having trouble coming to terms with my difficult birth and EMCS. The midwife who had been with me in labour came to see me and went through my notes with me, which really helped. Actually, she gave me one of the best pieces of advice I've ever had - 'it's not the cards you are dealt in life that are important, but how you choose to play them.'

I've also been to the hospital during this pregnancy to talk through what happened last time and discuss VBAC v planned CS.

I didn't have a debrief after the birth of ds 19 months ago but now that I'm pg again the midwife at my booking in appt told me that it was possible although i'd never heard of it. I've moved hospitals and had a VBAC appt today and was told that the reason things went so wrong - 40 hour labour, failed ventouse then emcs was that I was really dehydrated in early labour and my body shut down therefore I had to be induced to get labour reestablished. It turns out my labour was badly managed at the midwife led birth unit and I was allowed to go on for far too long without intervention. I'm so glad to hear this now as I really felt as though it was my fault although it would have been good to have been told at the time rather than having to wait this long!

It's strange as I put the whole experience to one side as soon as I gave birth and said it was fine but actually it wasn't. It's only now that I'm pg again and the reality is setting in that I'm going to have to go through it again that I've started to feel really fearful of the whole experience. Now that it's been explained I feel a whole lot better but just wish that it was more of a standard thing as so many women seem to have similar experiences that affect them for a long time after they give birth.

Sorry, this is long, don't mean to hijack!

Eastendmummy the second paragraph you wrote is exactly how I feel.
I need to know what went wrong with DD's delivery before I will agree to VBAC.
I wake in the night worrying about it.
I'm seeing the MW tomorrow anyway so I'm going to ask about a debrief and see what happens.
Thanks so much for starting this thread MamaG it has been so useful.

Does anyone know how one would go about having a debrief 7.5 years on? I have no problem with my medical care (once I transferred to hospital from home, it was excellent), but I still get weepy when I hear ambulances, never mind think about DS's birth. All I want is to piece the fragments together and find out exactly what happened - but I have no idea how I'd go about it. When I asked in hospital (when I went for an appointment regarding a prolapse that followed the delivery), they said my notes had been lost... But I'd still like to talk to someone.

Smac, you really should try and get that debrief - I found out that DD1 was a brow presentation, so it was highly unlikely that she would ever have come down properly. I got to fully dilated, then started going backwards (to 9cm) as my cervix became swollen. It was really good to know that there was no good reason why I shouldn't be able to deliver a baby vaginally, and it was a huge part of why I decided to try for a VBAC. Both DDs 2 and 3 were vaginal births. I did spend loads of time on my hands and knees trying to make sure DD2 was in the right position (didn't with DD3 as I had no time to worry about things like that when I had a 4yo and a 2yo to look after!).

MamaG, DHs just don't get it, do they? One of the reasons I found the courage to go for a debrief was because one of my sisters sent me some articles she'd been given by a friend about how women often struggle to come to terms with emergency sections. She asked me if I was OK - I wasn't, and it was almost as if she had given me permission to be upset about it, IYSWIM. I'm not DH-bashing here; at the risk of a terrible generalisation, men just cannot understand the emotional store we place by our births. Also, from throw-away remarks made much later on, I think DH found it distressing to remember how much pain I was in (failed epidural), and that I was begging him to help me and he couldn't. So he chose not to go over it again. And, at a distance of 5.5 years, I can appreciate his viewpoint.

Kirstieallsoppsalterego, I'm not sure but your hospital's Patient Liaison Service (PALS) would probably be a good place to start. Or the Head of Midwifery (whose name you can get from PALS).

Hope you can get some help with it.