Honeymoon Fresh

[pinkee]

Ok so the GP Doctor on Daybreak has just waded into the C-section debate saying that women in Hollywood, LA have C-sections to stay "honeymoon fresh" and protect their pelvic floor muscles, calling such a reason "frivolous" and going on about the extra medical staff who would need to be around.

Daybreak have the "too posh to push" headline which Christine Bleakley has been saying all through their news coverage.

Makes me very angry - I mean how offensive is it use this language about women in this manner, the assumption that a women felt a c-section was needed to protect her pelvic floor that this a frivolous reason incenses me, surely it could be a medical reason. Arghhhhh!

That's it really I just wanted to vent.

Then how do they seem to get washboard stomachs within a matter of weeks of a cs? I did say I assumed they had tummy tucks , what you've said makes absolute sense though.

When I refer to permanent damage, I actually meant serious permanent damage, I personally know more women who've been left damaged by CS than by natural birth, but whether it's because it was a slash and grab cs rather than planned, I don't know. My sister still has a numb area on her stomach some 28 years later and DH's cousin got a £100k payout due to bowel and bladder damage with a cs, she's been left doubly incontinent and has a colostomy bag and has to cathetherise herself I would hope that kind of trauma didn't happen too often with natural birth, although I'm aware of the hideous injuries some women suffer. Perhaps I'm biased against cs because I don't know anyone who had a bad vaginal delivery.

On both occasions whilst in labour with the youngest DDs I remember both widwives being less than pleased that my labours were going over 10 hours (apparently delivery time should get significantly shorter the more children you give birth to?).

Unfortunately, the cynic in me always views anything the state provides as making women's lives better, or gives them more choice as a redlight to step back and think long and hard about possible ulterior motives.

I just worry that CS will be pushed and be the way forward. All those mums to be delivering on a pre-arranged date, at a time which suits the hospital and it's plans, fitting the statistics and with less variables to be taken into account.

I know people who have had terrible vaginal deliveries with consequences like loss of sexual function (numbness still there 10 years on so will it get better) and other things. While all I know who have had a CS (including me 2 one emergency one elective) have been fine, BF, recovered well etc

So from that POV I think it does depend on who you know and your own experience which you think is "better".

I suppose you can not apply the specific as a generalisation. Women have good and bad birth outcomes, both with vaginal and CS type births.

I'm just shocked that Dr HIllary got to spout his rot about women supposedly being "Honeymoon Fresh" [hmmm]

I checked the ITV website and apparently he still works for the NHS on a part time basis.

Honeymoon fresh is just so awful I can barely bring myself to comment on it.

The whole idea of virginity in women being vitally important is just so grotesque and leads to such harm, I think men like this bloke need to think before they advocate it.

What's the opposite of Honeymoon Fresh ? :o

Revolting knob-end.

Oh sorry you were asking a question? I was just pondering on the doctor in the OP

my ob-gyn in germany had a frank discussion with me about cs. none of his female colleagues would labour naturally, nor his male colleagues' wives, because of the risk of urinary incontinence and other associated vaginal birth hazards in the longer term. my own cs at that point (he was booking me in for the following day at term after fully expecting to vb) was due to macrosomia. i subsequently vbac'd the other two and broke one. i certainly wouldn't have another vb, but it's feck all to do wi' being posh. and there are many many reasons for electing to have whatever sort of birth.

'honeymoon fresh' is a repulsive term. thank goodness i am not in the uk to listen to this garbage.

does honeymoon fresh mean tight?

yes. in the 'unsullied by previous stretching in any manner' form. yik.

Sex feels no different to me and no complaints from him after 2 DDs.
CS in an emergency great. Choice of a CS after a traumatic birth, if counciling doesn't help, only humane.
Normalising major surgery as a birthing "choice", sorry that's just wrong IMO

And almost as demeaning to poor weak women as honeymoon fresh.

I wonder if the rate of injury from vaginal delivery, would decrease if women were treated with dignity and kindness when they were in labour, instead of as if they're a bloody self-indulgent nuisance who should just bloody get on with it?

So much of oxytocin production and labour contractions, are down to the emotion of the time and when a woman enters into a NHS ward where she is treated like a supplicant at best, like shit at worse, that is going to impede her labour - we already know that masses of women who are in full swinging labour, immediately stop contracting the minute they enter the hostile environment of a labour ward, which can lead to the spiral of intervention, I wonder if it can also affect the rate of birth injuries (are they more likely if labour is slowed down? I have no idea about this, am just speculating, perhpas someone with more knowledge about this can shed light on it).

But I have a gut feeling that if women were treated with proper respect when they are in labour, and properly cared for before and after, the rate of injury from vaginal delivery might go down and women wouldn't be so keen on having CS's in the first place.

EleanorRathbone, because my first labour was traumatic and I didn't immediately bond with DD I was nominated by my midwife for the GP scheme for the 2nd birth. Not sure if they are still available as this was 1989 and I was informed they were expensive.
A suite was booked at the maternity hospital, the community midwife who I visited throughout my pregnancy would deliver my baby and take care of baby and me afterwards. A fabulous, stress free labour with entinox towards the end the only pain relief.
Next 2 deliveries were back on the production line and horrendous.

Within the next few weeks I'm a birthing partner for my DD and I have no idea if standards are better or worse than the early 90s ?

MsAnn, that's usually called a DOMINO scheme. Sadly not available in most areas anymore, though they do have it in the Wirral and a few other places. In my third year of my midwifery degree I will get to have a caseload of about 15 women who I will provide that type of care for - it will be great, but it should be standard for all women.

This is why I plan to birth at home, all being well - it's the only way to get OFF the production line.

12 years ago it was available in the part of London I lived, but my MW gave me a tip - she said, book a home birth and then if you want to go to hospital at any time during the labour, you can and you get the DOMINO by default. You can't rely on domino, because if there aren't enough midwives, they will not send one out and will tell you to come straight into hospital. Whereas with home births, they HAVE to send mw out.

It so pisses me off that there is such a shortage of midwives when so many women want to train and so many women need them but the men who run the country just don't consider our lives important enough to invest in them.

Do either of you know where I can find the costs for, DOMINO, home birth, water births, etc. ?

eleanror I agree as well.

The other things that I found odd was that the midwife led places around here are in hospitals with no access to doctory mat services. So if anything starts going awry you have to get into an ambulance and be taken to hospital. And you only have access to a limited range of pain relief. Personally I think that puts a lot of women off. And it makes a real differential between EITHER earth mother natural nicey no pain relief breathe comfy dimly lit room and whale music OR hospital uncomfortable unfriendly surroundings very hospitallly feel and the problems that eleanor describes.

Surely it would be better to put the widwife led units within striking distance of the hospital? At the moment the situation is that unless you are 100% sure you won't want an epidural (who can be sure of that with a first time delivery?) then you have to go to the hosp. Why can't people have the comfy pleasant touchy-feely birth surroundings but with access to the anaesthetists and doctors if they need them? It sets up a "which sort of birth experience person are you" before you're even anywhere near giving birth. It also means that anyone with higher risk cannot access the more reasonable surroundings.

I agree too Eleanor. I had a home birth with DD and it was wonderful-hard work of course, but wonderful. And I never once felt afraid. I think this was because I was treated like a person and not an inconvenience. My midwife kept in the background most of the time and let me get on with it. As a result, I felt that this was my birth and I was in control. I wish every woman could have positive experiences birthing their babies.

Ann, www.homebirth.org.uk might be a good place to start.

I planned a home birth but ended up having the Domino thing, three years ago. The midwives they sent to me were community midwives, not hospital ones. When I went in I saw someone completely different. I used the pool and entonox and it was fine. I'm slightly concerned that planned hospital births are referred to as a "production line" - I thought that everyone would get the same treatment :(

The only thing I was a bit about was that because I was supposed to be going home after 6 hours or whatever it was, they put me back on the labour ward rather than the postnatal one. By complete chance a friend of mine who was 6 months pregnant was in because she was having complications, and I just thought it was quite insensitive to anyone else who was in because of that. But they might have had no beds on the PN ward, I don't know.

It was lovely to be snuggled up at home in my own bed with DS less than 24 hours after he was born, though.

I think C-sections should be avoided if possible because there is a correlation between them and maternal death rate! I don't know why this isn't talked about more. It's major surgery. What annoys me is that C-sections are treated like the easy way out, or the easy option, when in fact the outcomes for the mother's body are much worse.

Obviously I don't like the medicalization of birth, but if a woman feels that a c-section is the best option for her, then of course she should be allowed the choice. Giving birth vaginally is horrendous in many ways (the lack of control! the pain!), and it's completely understandable that some women don'T want to go through that.

I just worry that the side-effects of caesarian are glossed over. A vaginal delivery is healthier, if managed properly, so women should be informed of this ( I realise that incompetent hospital staff often cause problems for mothers when they deliver vaginally, so more effort and cash needs to be channelled into training midwives to make sure women can give birth safely and comfortably)

It's also true that in some countries hospitals make more money from C-sections.

not sure sakura but I think the c-sections are more dangerous stats are skewed by em-cs, I think if you compare elcs with vb the level of risk is on a par (though the nature of risk is different)

My family seem to have a history of really difficult first births (probably coincidental). My mum and I both had three-day labours, baby occipito posterior and horrible forceps deliveries that left both of us with major tears and serious long-term problems. My daughter was heading the same way with a 24 hour labour but thankfully had a CS in the end - to help the baby, which was in distress (not to help her!). She was up and about and recovered with no ongoing problems long before my mother and I were.

I said a silent prayer of thanks when I heard she was going for a CS instead of the doctors trying to do heroic stuff with bloody high forceps deliveries.

Oh and that silly man who talked about honeymoon fresh should be wheeled out and shot.