Awful birth ‘options’ meeting

[Padronpeppersplease]

I’ve just had my 28 week birth options meeting with a midwife and wondering if anyone else has had a similarly pushy experience. She asked me about whether I intended to breast or bottle feed and also what I’m planning for the birth. I said I was 99% sure I wanted to exclusively bottle feed and then also that I was considering an elective c section. I’d heard previously that the NHS try and push both breastfeeding & natural births but I was not prepared for how pushy this midwife was! She said to me that bottle feeding was ‘way worse for baby’ and that ‘a c section was a million times harder on my body’ than a natural birth would be. According to her as my body is built for birth I don’t need to worry about the pain of natural labour and tears during labour aren’t anywhere near as bad as the potential complications of a c section, she also said that opting for a c section would limit the number of children I could have. Despite all this I’m still leaning towards a c section, I’m under no impression that it’s easy recovery & without risks but I honestly feel now like I’m doing something totally outlandish by opting for it.

Why do you want a c-section OP?

And what are your reasons for not intending to attempt breastfeeding?

Yep, my baby had cord round her neck. Not a problem, totally fine, midwife just whipped it off.

It’s not what the midwife wants to hear. We can assume the OP has researched the options and made her decision. She should now be supported by the midwife in those options. What the midwife wants is irrelevant

Statistics show that breastfeeding reduces the risk of PND so I'm not sure what you mean by worse for the mother.

For many women the recovery from a CS takes longer. But recovery definitely happens. For some very unfortunate women a complete recovery from a vaginal birth simply doesn't happen.

I had one natural delivery, if you can call it that. In theatre with a spinal block. Thankfully no lasting physical issues, but left me traumatised. I lost so much blood and had to stay in for days. I had one ecs and left hospital the next day and recovered much quicker and mentally I felt fine. With the first traumatic midwife managed and failed birth experience I suffered PND, after the CS I never looked back.

I chose to formula feed. One midwife said to me that bottle fed babies are slower to speak....mmm. My first child was speaking in short sentences at 13m. Correlation is not causation. I was treated as though I was Myra Hindleys love child by the midwives which to be honest only validated my feeling that I was right to do what I thought was best for me and my family.

Shrug it off OP and stick to your guns. I hope it goes well for you.

I disagree, having done both. Obviously something like bonding is quite hard to measure in a research study, but to me it seems likely that breastfeeding feeding is better for bonding because there is a physiological relationship between mother and baby, which you don’t get with bottle feeding. There is obviously also the fact that the mother is doing all the feeds which is better for bonding

With the greatest respect, that's bollocks. Women (and men) who bottle feed their babies have perfectly good/great bonds with the baby and as it grows into a child/adult.

For advice? An outside perspective?

It's possible to offer either without lecturing or implying (or even outright stating from some) that she isn't making the 'right' choices.

She told you the truth.

Breastfeeding is far better for babies whatever formula companies want you to believe. Obviously if you cannot breastfeed for medical reasons then fed baby is best but as a choice a midwife would be telling lies if she just shrugged and said it was fine to bottle feed.

Similarly, c sections have higher complication rates, far slower recovery and there's a growing body of evidence that it's not as good for babies. Like with bottle feeding, if a c section is medically necessary then they are a wonderful thing but as an option when there's no medical contraindications they are not a good choice.

I assume that the OP is not a doctor or nurse and that her research may therefore be flawed or may give over due emphasis to some factors and not others

Please at least consider breastfeed for the first few days to help give baby immune system a huge boost

I thought that was only true for women who wanted to breast feed during pregnancy and not actually for the case for women who didn’t.

I’m not sure she has thought that hard though. She sounds like she’s being led by fear and scaremongering.

If the role of the midwife in a birth options meeting is only to agree with and validate the patient's choices, then what really is the point of the meeting?

Surely the point of those meetings is to go in and learn something from someone who has knowledge and experience.

As my mum always said: "I am not saying it because I like the sound of my own voice, I am saying it as I think it will be better for you".

Of course, not easy to hear when you have a different mindset, I totally get that.

very true, I was shocked at how long it took me to heal,didn't feel right for the first year and had horrible dragging pains lifting my baby once they were around 6 months and were getting heavier. I also had internal dissolving stitches that didn't come away for months. Not a great time in my life and then of course factor in caring for a baby and getting hardly any rest which I am sure impacts on recovery

Honestly OP, if you are someone who is intelligent, can weigh risk, can evaluate information and research, then I would trust yourself. I'm a researcher by nature, I spend a lot of time reading and researching decisions, I like to be fully informed from multiple sources. I'm happy to listen to a midwife or health visitor but really nothing they have ever told me is new information to me or stuff I haven't considered. But obviously they don't know that, they are doing their due diligence.

In your case, if you are comfortable with your decision, have done your research, then I'd just thank midwife for her input but say you have fully researched what is right for you.

Birth stories are a huge spectrum, even in this thread you can see the huge range of experiences. There's no guarantee for any of it, just different risks and levels of risk you are happy with.

I had an EMCS for my first (whose heart nearly stopped during labour), recovery was okay but it was a very fast section to get her out so it was probably more 'brutal' than it might have been otherwise.

I had an elective for number two which was an absolute breeze. Back driving at 10 days PP, no pain other than mild ache if I sat down too long, and two years on no lasting issues from either birth aside from the scar which has healed fine.

But that's just my experience, someone else will have an awful elective story to tell.

We can't choose or control everything about birth, some of it just down to luck. But we can control what we weigh up as the bigger risks or risks that we feel more comfortable with.

For me, I didn't consider a VBAC at all. My baby nearly died during a previous attempt, I didn't fancy having both a c section scar and then risking tearing and long term damage down there, I wanted something controlled, planned, known, and that's what I got and it was right for me.

Knowing what I know now about how quickly and rapidly a vaginal birth can go south, and how well my body recovered from an elective and how much nicer it was being well rested for the first night with baby than exhausted and traumatised, I wish I had done that for number 1 instead, but you don't know what you don't (or can't) know. And what happened to me is individual, same as everyone else's stories.

Her reasons for either are nothing to do with you, me or anyone else on this thread.

On the different types of delivery, I had one of each and there was far more pain and discomfort from CS recovery than from a natural birth. And I found it weeks before I could do normal stuff round the house like laundry, walk any distance or do anything requiring light lifting. It was hard not being able to drive. After natural birth I was up and about next day and fine in a week. There's no way to know how it will impact you though, I have friends who were the opposite. On feeding, I think it's good they explained the benefits of BF but they should have respected your choice.

Your body, your baby, your choice....

That said, the midwife does have to a) understand your reasoning for wanting a C-Section (assuming that there isn't a medical need) and b) try and give you some information so that you can be informed about the potential risks etc and weigh up your options.

@Miresquire

The RCOG state 1 in 8 vaginal births are assisted, with the figure being 1 in 3 for first time mothers.

I’m didn’t say deadly poison. I said amazing is not the right word. I’ve used formula btw so I do know how it works 😉 I will likely to use it for my next baby too (and breastfeed). It’s better to be correct about things - breastfeeding is amazing. Formula is a great back up alternative

And also the zero issues thing isn’t right either but hey Ho

Of corse everyone has different experiences and I haven’t read all the reply’s but just to show you the other side of the coin, I had a c section with my second child due to them being breech, I have to say I was incredibly lucky but the recovery has been 100% easier on my body and mental health than my first natural birth. I have also formula fed 2 very healthy happy baby’s

Similarly, c sections have higher complication rates, far slower recovery and there's a growing body of evidence that it's not as good for babies.

Can you provide links, or point us towards, any evidence that elective C sections are worse for babies than vaginal births?

I had an emergency c-section first time round and it was an absolute shit show. Recovery was awful. Second I asked for an elective and they gave it no issues and was absolutely wonderful, felt myself in 2 weeks. Many of my friends are opting for elective c-section first time round and have had really nice experiences.

Just countering some of the "c-sections are always really hard and should only be where medically necessary" comments.

For both birth and feeding it is 100% your body your choice.

Yes, I had the same experience - second time round, I just lied and said I was breastfeeding, even though I wasn't. It was easier than being hounded to do something I didn't want to do, which was my experience first time round, even though I almost died having my son. I couldn't even move and had lost all my blood and they were pressurising me about BFing as soon as I was out of ICU. It was honestly the last thing I could focus on. I had to have counselling for PTSD.

Also had to really push to have an elective C-section second time round, despite nearly dying the first time ('natural' birth although it was anything but) due to complications. There was no WAY I was going to attempt to give birth naturally again. Needless to say, I recovered far more quickly than I did the first time round. You have to be really firm with them. Neither of my babies were breastfed (well tbf I did express for about six weeks so they had that and formula) and they are happy, healthy and really pretty clever teenagers now!

I am passionate about breastfeeding but, unlike some, I'm not anti-formula. If you want to formula feed then that's your choice and should be respected.
I'd have loved a vaginal birth but ended up with an EMCS (due to my midwife not picking up on an infection I picked up potentially weeks before birth...that's another story entirely). My recovery was absolutely fine (I'm sure some women really struggle, but not ALL women will struggle, just like some women sailing through recovery from a vaginal birth and some don't).

Lots of pro-breastfeeding women on here seem to only respect 'my body, my choice' when it suits them, and can make BF advocates look like militant bitches (I gave the odd formula top up when DP went back to work and I was struggling with BFing, and two of my friends made disgusted faces and rolled their eyes when I told them. It made me feel fucking awful. We're not all like that.). The science is there to tell you why BF is the best option for baby, but it doesn't mean it's the best option for Mum's health/mental health and your choice to bottle feed should be respected. At the end of the day it's your baby and your body so it's YOUR choice. Best of luck with it all.

How are you going to compare that? You can't compare women who didn't want to breastfeed and didn't with women who didn't want to breastfeed and did because the sample size for the second one is going to be 0, since there's no-one going around hospitals forcibly latching newborns onto unwilling mothers.