Elective c section

[Corgisandcoffee]

Hello! Are woman in the UK now truly allowed the choice to have an elective c section? I'm pregnant with my first and have thought for many reasons that an elective would be the best choice for my situation. However, my friend gave birth in Sheffield (I'm there too, we are both expats) in late 2019 and begged to have an elective and was told no. My friend also told me that she was made to feel like a horrible person for asking for the elective, which is just awful. That said, I was wondering what to expect. I have my first appointment next week, and I wasn't sure if this is something I should mention early on. Thanks in advance :)

Because I don't want to ever have to do a natural birth , the uncertainty of it all makes me feel really stressed .

Elective is much calmer organized experience

@handbagsandholidays i hope you don’t mind me messaging u, I noticed ur comment on OPs post and I am really sorry to hear you are going through these complications…..I am currently 14 weeks and my consultant is also concerned this could be a risk I could be faced with this pregnancy due to having previous csections (1emergency 2 electives) I am currently having more scans so they can best prepare if I do have placenta accreta and take it from there. Do you mind me asking when you found out about the placenta accreta and vasa previa? And whereabouts are you? I have another scan in 2 ish weeks where they are hoping they might be able to get a better look at the placenta, then again at 20 weeks. I am really scared as my last elective section was by no means straightforward so that was anxiety inducing enough. Sorry for jumping on ur post OP, as @handbagsandholidays has said make sure you know ALL the info for this pregnancy as well as future ones and potential complications of both vaginal and csection post birth so you can make a fully informed decision based on it as a whole, elective sections can be a calm experience but that certainly isn’t always the case, as with vaginal births, plenty of people have calm great vaginal births whilst others do not. People are wrong to assume if you have a vaginal birth it will be bad and if you have a C-section it will be good and vice versa, there are always risks with both, it’s about weighing up those potential risks and deciding which is less risky for each individual woman/ pregnancy.

@handbagsandholidays sorry it didn’t tag you in my previous post x

Elective is much calmer organized experience

not always, as pp have said some people have lovely calm vb, for some a cs is an awful experience. Issue is you don’t know which you’ll be until after, so you have to decide which risks are acceptable for you.

my elective was awful. Firstly they found an undiagnosed scoliosis, so it took over an hour to site the spinal, with horrific shooting leg pain every time they hit bone or nerve. My back was a scabby mess and I have permanent scarring.

secondly I reacted badly to the anaesthetic, bp bottomed out, shaking, nausea, blacking out. It took every ounce of willpower to stay focussed and conscious, and I had to have my head lowered for the duration. It was very frightening as I was terrified if i “let go” i’d never wake up.

It was so bad I couldn’t hold or even acknowledge my baby, i sent dh away with them to weigh, dress etc while I again focussed on being able to see and think without throwing up. It was about an hour before I felt well enough to function.

then 24 hours of throwing up meds, water, and everything else.

so not always calm and easy. A friend had a section for breech and got the most horrific infection. Her dh ended up needing 6 months off work as she was in and out of hospital and couldn’t look after the kids.

@Reallyreallyborednow I didn’t suggest anything. I gave my experience and reasons for choosing an elective which is what PP asked for.

I've had an emergency section at 35 weeks, baby wasn't going to make it and it was terrifying. And then I had an elective, which didn't go to plan as I actually went into labour 2 weeks before my elective was due to happen. I lasted a week before I said get the baby out.. so I had an elective a week earlier than planned.
I was actually probably more scared at the elective because it was so slow, walking down to surgery, seeing all the doctors in the theatre and just being able to take it all in the second time was quite terrifying also.
I didn't feel it was a calm experience at all for me personally and I got quite upset, probably lots of hormones. Although the doctors were amazing.
I'll be having an elective this time around and to be honest I'm really scared again and I'm only in my first trimester. 😆

People should choose whatever works for them but without sounding negative, I just wanted OP to know that having an elective isn't quite a party that it seems, for some people. If I could have had a natural birth for my first I would have preferred that. The not being able to drive for weeks is what gets me, drives me mad haha! But who knows what my natural birth would have been like! 🥰

Agree with @Reallyreallyborednow My electives wernt calm….they had to get the crash trolley in for me during my first elective and they’d only put in the spinal anaesthetic by this point. My 2nd elective I nearly experienced uterine rupture due to having had previous csection and all my bowel bladder and womb was stuck together, they had to get another consultant in to help (I had bladder and bowel issues post birth due to this) And my first section I needed a blood transfusion and experienced an infection afterwards and I was in and out of hospital needing different antibiotics, it took weeks to be able to walk without being in pain due to the infection.

All that is on top of the normal recovery and usual things that happen with csection (sickness pain, itching, wind pain, bleeding, not being able to pick up your baby without help etc) which everyone experiences with a C-section.

Having said all that I am very grateful that csections exist for those who need them as I would of been one of the woman years ago who died during childbirth.

Unfortunately you are not guaranteed to experience good or bad experiences with either csection or vaginal birth.

Yes, though they often lead you to believe that you're not / that you shouldn't so go armed with knowledge of the NICE guidelines and ready to stick your heels in. I've had 3, though the third, being a third, wasnt classed as maternal choice any more.

I would also educate yourself on the risks / benefits by reading the RCOG / similar guidelines and carefully make your own choice. It's eye opening to read the statistics and really makes it difficult to understand why so many push for "natural" birth. Sadly very few mothers know about the risks.

@Jaaxe couldn’t pick your baby up without help? That’s not a normal post c section experience.

@Louise0701 it is when your legs aren’t working due to spinal not having worn off from surgery and your baby is in a cot next to you, very normal to need help to pick them up (safely anyway)

couldn’t pick your baby up without help? That’s not a normal post c section experience

it is for the first few hours and possibly days. It’s normal not to be able to sit up, turn and lift a fairly heavy baby out of it’s cot post abdominal surgery. And if you could, it isn’t advised in case you damage the wound.

it was a while for me before I could pick the baby up comfortably. Dh had to get her out her cot and bring her to me while i pulled myself to sit for at least a week.

I'm booked for an elective section. I had a traumatic first birth on paper but thankfully have been left with no lasting injuries from it. Because of this I was sent automatically to see a consultant at 17 weeks who basically said that due to my history I had a choice on how I wanted to give birth this time: Induction at term, No intervention and natural birth, and an elective section. I chose the elective and they just said "great! We'll give you a date for that when you're 35 weeks!" No resistance at all and not a single person has tried to convince me it's not the best for me.

Hello @Jaaxe,

I'm so sorry you're going through this too. In all honesty, I don't mind you messaging me at all but I have no idea how/where to find the private messaging function on this app. I've seen people talk about it but cannot for the life of me find it!

I wasn't diagnosed until i was 23 weeks + 2 days and this was at a private anomaly scan in the U.K. It was missed at my 20 week scan and again during a hospital admission whilst abroad at 22 weeks. Following the private scan, It was suggested I had an NHS scan so I did and my diagnosis was confirmed at 24+2. A further scan was booked for 25+6 as routine as I was told 2 scans are needed before an MRI to gauge the accreta depth. In all honesty, at my 25+6 scan, the sonographer did not know what she was looking for. I had to explain the previous position of my placental lobes, the connecting vessels etc to her so she could then look for the things I had told her to look for rather than simply 'checking placenta position' as her initial remarks were that 'it is simply low lying anterior placenta' without even realising that there was a whole addition posterior lobe and exposed vessels connecting the two which ran over my cervix. Thankfully she then called in somebody senior who knew what they were looking at although she did say she had not seen this presentation in years! Have you got any symptoms of VP/accreta? I had numerous heavy bleeds and a lot of pain from early in my pregnancy which I now know were early signs. The optimistic plan is for me to get to 34 weeks and deliver via c section at our nearest level 3 hospital. I'm told that the riskiest part is being undiagnosed so I'm really pleased to hear that it is being looked in to for you xx