Horrors of birth they don't warn you about.

[babybliss]

I had a wonderful pregnancy which ran by the book until labour.I went through 2 days of pain before they finally gave me an epidural then after an hour or so of pushing and a distressed baby and mother, some bright spark decided to try forceps and ventouse instead of a c-section.My DD was delivered not breathing and had suffered shoulder distocia. They gave me an episiotomy but I suffered 3rd degree tearing. I lost over 5 pints of blood and nearly didn't make it.My daughter spent 2 days in SCBU and luckily has made a full recovery. She is 7 months old and I am still not fully healed.I am told this is common but aneed to hear for myself if anyone has been through similar.

The size of the epidural needle

Giving yourself piles through pushing very hard - and they never go back

Stitches - The pain and length of time it takes

It is shockingly brutal. I had flashbacks until about 8 months after birth, that would come without warning and with no provocation I could ever work out. Worst was while paying for petrol one day.

erm I think babybliss had a more serious type of discussion when she posted this.

sorry to hear that you had such a stressful birth experience. there have been previous threads from MNetters (probably in the childbirth topic) with some similar stories, and who have had 3rd degree tears. i wouldn't say an experience like you had was particular common, but certainly not unusual.

in terms of healing/tear - are you under a gynaecologist/physio to help with any ongoing problems? is your GP sympathetic?

have you considered going over a copy of your labour notes with a senior midwife at your hospital. that might help you come to terms with what has happened.

take care
x

skiing mummy - did you not have a local anaesthetic for your stitches???

Not sure these were the sort of posts you meant babybliss - sounds like you had a horrible time and really, if you are still unhappy you should at least speak to someone about it. Mears might be able to help with suggestions of who you should speak to regarding your birth experience - it sounds horrible and these things can take the shine off having a lovely new baby! The local midwifery team at the hospital should also be able to put you on the right tracks for talking to someone about this. HTH

no one warned me there was a posibility you could poo yourslef when pushing! How humiliating! have since been told this is a common occurence!

sorry to hear what a dreadful experience you had babybliss

Babybliss - there's a good resource called "Birth Crisis" for women who've had traumatic birth experiences. I'll try to find the site for you. Congrats on your daughter though

Oh Babybliss

My sympathies are with you at the mo. I went through something very similar, my baby also had shoulder dystocia nd the whole experience was very traumatic. It has taken me along time to come to terms with what happened and I suffered from ptsd as a result. Thankfully ds was okay and I'm glad to see everything is okay for your dd. If you want to discuss this more then please cat me also, can i just recommend you look up Birth Crisis on google, it is very relevant and you may find that Sheila Kitzinger may be able to help. With me the lack of control i had over the situation scared me alot. Talking about what you have been through is always a good way of dealing with difficult births other than here have you had the chance to debrief at all?? Sending you my love x

Thanks to all for your advice and wishes.
I do need some emotional help and my family are so supportive. They have found me a wonderful medical negligence solicitor as I want to try to stop this kind of thing happening to other mothers. but I think people should be more aware that not all births are quick, easy and realitively pain free.

I agree on that one, I hadn't even heard of shoulder dystocia before it happened, it is never covered as a possible eventuality.

Babybliss - the Birth Crisis network is here . They do workshops and also have a phoneline for advice or just a listening ear. The founder of the organisation has a few articles on the site about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which may be relevant too.

Sorry about whats happenend to you. I found that going over my notes and discussing the whole thing with the midwife who was with me (and brilliant) was very very useful and helped me enormously both initially and now, 16 months down the line. I felt that i had all of my questions answered thoroughly and frankly by the midwife who i was (luckily) able to connect with and get on with. It made me feel very much that she was "with" me rather than a professional doing her job "to" me if you will. Do you know what i mean?Hope this helps.

Babyliss - sorry to hear you had such a bad time. I guess when something like that happens, it brings home to you that childbirth can still be a very scary and dangerous business, not necessarily the straightforward, natural experience we are led to expect. I suppose health professionals have to weigh up between terrifying you with all sorts of possibly disaster stories, and the reality that you will most likely have a straightforward time.

Like you, I had a textbook pregnancy until week 33, when I suddenly gave birth prematurely and then was (eventually - don't even get me started on that!) diagnosed with a large and potentially life-threatening DVT. I'm sure this doesn't begin to compare with your experience for trauma, but I was left thinking, "hang on, last week it was all going so smoothly!".

Dear Babybliss,

Sorry you had such a bad time of it. I didn't have quite the catalogue of horrors that you did but there were 2 aspects of my dd's birth that were not great. One was that my placenta failed to deliver and the other was that my dd was born with a hand at her face, I had had no episiotomy and so I also suffered a 3rd degree tear.

In my case the failure of the placenta to deliver was almost a blessing though as I then had to have a spinal block to remove it in theatre and they did the repair work to me whilst the block was in effect.

My tear was into my sphincter muscle (Oh, god - maybe this is too much information ) and I had a pretty grim time for the first few weeks and recurring soreness and a dragging feeling for several months.

The worst day was when my dd was 2 weeks old; I had taken lots of lactulose as I was told I had to not strain for fear of bursting my stiches - my DH decided to cook me a high fibre meal with lots of spinach and other veggies and I didn't get to the loo in time (It took a while to be able to hold in a poo and farts are still a bit dicey almost 2 years on!!!). I was sooooo upset. I laugh my head off about it now but at the time it was awful.

It does get better - if you're still in physical pain after your daughter's 1st birthday, though I would suggest you should see your GP or your consultant.

Hope hearing about other peoples' unfortunate circumstances does help you a bit just so you know others have got through some of the nasties, too.

well its a long time ago - but the enema with funnel, pink tubing and GALLONS of water - nuff said! Also I didn't know my boobs would go rock hard after a day or two - it really worried me

hi babybliss - i have dd2 who is 7 mths tomorrow - she is my 3rd and planned to have her at home, as other 2 were straightforward.

But I had to go to the local cottage hosp, as waters broke but contractions didn't establish.

Once contractions got established, she actually arrived quite quickly and easily on the Monday, but like lyndap my placenta was attached. I lost a litre & a half of blood and had a general to get the placenta out. So traumatic for dh to see me go into theatre while he stood with a newborn in his arms - I guess your dh/dp didn't even have that as your little one went straight to SCBU

They let me go home after 2 days, and I had lost so much blood I fitted while feeding dd2 - proper full-on thrashing about - could have squashed her - horrible to think of the possible consequences. Still feel cold when I think about it.

But you still have health problems to deal with now and our babies are the same age. I really sympathise and you must chase up the health professionals for any therapy you can get...

See you on the April babies thread

{{hugs}}

Lyndap I know exactly what you mean. I can joke about the incontinence abit know but I still find myself having to cross my legs as I run to the loo.
We recently went to the Lake District and as we were going out for walks I wouldn't drink anything or eat any rich food as I knew I couldn't hold anything in for any period of time. I won't go anywhere unless I know where the nearest toilet(or bush) is for fear of an accident.

babyliss - I suffered a similar trauma, ending up battered both physically and mentally. I've had to have operations, physio and counselling and all I can say is things will hopefully improve for you as they have for me - but it can take an awfully long time. DS is now coming up for five and I still have physical problems but not all the time. I also tried to sue - but be warned it is almost impossible to prove negligence. Everything pointed to negligence in my case but it was a case of close but no cigar. I'll happily talk to you via CAT if you think I can help in anyway - I can recommend my solicitor and my phsyio if you would like their names; plus sometimes just talking can help. Anyway, I'm here if you want.

babyliss
I had a similarish experience, but not anywhere near yours. A day and a half of labour then ds delivered ventouse (me prepped for emergency caesarian and past caring by this point). DS had a damaged arm which was corrected by physio, he also had a lot of cranial osteopathy. I had a bad tear which took at least two and a half months to heal properly. I was very weak after the birth but insisted on going home the next day - then felt dreadful for probably the first six weeks of my son's life.
HAve a look on 'still traumatised from birth' in the childbirth section - sorry can't do links

You poor thing. Despite having placeta praevia my birth experience (via section) was good, but you have my total sympathy. Even Michel Odent, the natural birth guru who is in general pretty anti-c-section says that forceps 'belong in museums'.

A similar tale with DD1. An extremely long labour with massive contractions but not much else happening. Eventually given a spinal block and finally told to push with the mw looking at the monitor (I could feel nothing). This was allowed to go on for ages and was finally seen by consultant and told ventouse but probably C section. He then got called away for an emergency footling delivery and I was left for about 30 mins! In the theatre was once again told when to push and the weirdest thing happened to me. Everyone's voices became distant and I felt as though I was flying quickly over grass but looking down at the table I was on. It can't have lasted very long but was so weird and frightening as I couldn't speak either. Forceps were eventually used and my daughter was born with a hugely elongated and bruised head and a dark forceps mark on her face. She'd swallowed meconium and was blue but after they'd worked on her for a bit she was fine.
The next day we were transferred to another ward and the mw asked if I wanted her head covered so that people wouldn't stare at her. She wouldn't feed and a brain scan was mentioned but deemed unnecessary (mentioned again when she didn't respond to light at 8 wk check).
I was so worried about her that I paid little attention to how I felt but to this day I cannot look back at that time with much pleasure. I was so uncomfortable despite the episiotomy heling well - chronic constipation too.
I wish I'd sought help especially to find out what happened to me in the theatre.
I went on to have 2 fantastic births afterwards though (and no, there was no brain damage).
Hope you feel better soon.

Babybliss i also had a wondeful pregnancy, than the nightmere began just the same as you, was pushing for so long and they knew i was'nt gonna get the baby out, i also should have being given a c-section. The baby's weight was nearly 8lbs and im only 5ft 2ins and i was only 7 stone's when i fell preganant.

Well after a long time pushing, they said that i have to have a c-section, well they wheeled me in, and still made me push.

It was only than i said i just could'nt carry on i was already 16 hour's in labour, now you would think ok let's do the c-section but no they got the forcep's and ventouse out.

I felt like killing somebody,in the end they had to put me to sleep. Well i lost so many pint's of blood and also had to have a blood transfusion.

It has put me off for life, i don't want any more kid's as a result to that, i would never put myself through that again.