What's the all the hype about a normal vaginal birth?

Christina, you had a catastrophic birth experience. I would not be surprised if you were suffering from post traumatic stress! I know you are concerned that you will suffer a lifetime for the surgery you underwent after your birth. I hope that you will find in time that you will feel so so so much better. Vaginal birth very rarely results in the type of situation you ended up in and out of hospital, low risk, no intervention- vaginal birth NEVER results in the type of situation you encountered.

Look, if you are really curious about why c-sections are dangerous you should look at the research. The research makes it all very crystal clear why they are dangerous.

Personally, I know a woman who underwent c-section here in my town who got a mersa infection- had both arms and both legs amputated- uterus removed and is now blind. She went home to her new baby unable to walk, see her baby, or hold her baby. This woman walked into the hospital HEALTHY!!!! Infections are no joke- and they occur in the hospital ALL THE TIME.

Our baby is 10 days old and I walked half a mile today feeling wonderful. C-section recovery never looks like that.

Here are some PROVEN (these are studies) risks associated with C-section:

Increased risk of stroke in patients who undergo cesarean section delivery: a nationwide population-based study. (Lin, et al., Am J Obstet Gynecol. 198(4):391.e1-7, 14 Feb)
Study Design: Researchers examined population data to determine if cesarean sections increase the risk of stroke.
Bottom Line: At 3, 6, and 12 months after delivery, rates of stroke among the mothers were 67 percent, 61 percent, and 49 percent higher, respectively, following cesarean rather than vaginal birth. Cesarean section delivery is an independent risk factor for stroke.

Maternal morbidity following a trial of labor after cesarean section vs elective repeat cesarean delivery: a systematic review with metaanalysis. (Rossi, Am J Obstet Bynecol. 199(3):224-31, September)
Study Design: Researchers reviewed maternal complications following trial of labor after cesarean section, compared with elective repeat cesarean delivery. Bottom Line: VBAC was successful 73% of the time. Maternal morbidity, blood transfusion, and hysterectomy were similar in women planning VBAC or repeat cesarean. Maternal morbidity, uterine rupture/dehiscence, blood transfusion and hysterectomy were more common after a failed trial of labor than after a successful VBAC or repeat cesarean but outcomes were more favorable after a successful VBAC than repeat cesarean. These findings show that a higher risk of uterine rupture/dehiscence in women planning VBAC is counterbalanced by a reduction of maternal morbidity, uterine rupture/dehiscence and hysterectomy when VBAC is successful.

Placenta accreta and cesarean scar pregnancy: overlooked costs of the rising cesarean section rate. (Rosen, Clin Perinatol. 35(3):519-29, September)
Study Design: Author reviewed theories on abnormal placentation. Bottom Line: The rising cesarean rate has resulted in an increase in placenta accreta and cesarean scar pregnancy which are associated with high rates of maternal morbidity and mortality. Improvements in management and future research to reduce the incidence of the potentially devastating complication are necessary.

Cesarean delivery may affect the early biodiversity of intestinal bacteria. (Biasucci, J Nutr. 138(9):1796S-1800S, September)
Study Design: Researchers evaluated the relationship between the intestinal bacteria of the newborn and mode of delivery. Bottom Line: The intestines of newborns are colonized immediately after birth with bacteria, mainly from the mother. There is strong evidence suggesting that the type of bacteria plays an important role in the development of the immune system. The intestinal bacteria of infants delivered by cesarean delivery appear to be less diverse than the bacteria of vaginally delivered infants. The mode of delivery has a deep impact on the composition of the intestinal bacteria at the very beginning of human life.

and these are pop-culture articles:
http://www.consumerreports.org/health/conditions-and-treatments/pregnanc...

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/140352.php

I have to comment that, while I advocate for vaginal birth, I have had both and my experiences, while anecdotal and only one persons, run counter to some of the comments on c-sections. I am not casting doubt upon the dangers of major surgery, the complications of infections etc are always there, and should be avoided if possible. However the statement "Our baby is 10 days old and I walked half a mile today feeling wonderful. C-section recovery never looks like that" made me require to comment that my c-section birth was indeed like that. I recovered much faster from my second birth c-section (breech presentation) than I did from my first vaginal birth. In fact I have photos of me at the zoo with my newborn strapped to my chest and my two year old in stroller, one week after the c-section. I too felt fantastic, weirdly (or not) I never felt any pain in my incision. Now I am not saying that everyone's experience will be like mine, but then not everyone's vaginal birth experience is the same either.

Christina, I birthed this 5th child much like the 4th. In the dark, in my home, with only my husband there.
After our first birth in a free standing birth center with a midwife, I couldn't pee without extreme pain for two months and I couldn't wipe without searing pain for almost a year. It was the intervention of the midwife that caused the extensive, painful tear and it was the repair job by the midwife that caused the pain for the next year.
You would think after that experience I would have made a different decision for our second birth 18 months later- but I didn't. The second birth was no better than the first.
It was not until our 3rd pregnancy that I became active in the birth community. I read books about birth, I read medical studies about birth, I sat in on panel discussions about birth. I participated in bringing "birth" the play by Karen Brody to our community. I talked to OBGYNs, Midwives, doulas, and birthing women. I watched orgasmic birth and the business of being born.

I had baby 3 in our bathtub with a homebirth midwife. I still have so many regrets about that birth and the midwife was only in my home for 1 hour before the baby was born and I locked her out of the bathroom until the baby was crowning. Then she swooped in and caused all hell to break loose after I had birthed the head but not the whole baby. She was so concerned because the tub was dark with blood and she couldn't see the baby. Her anxiety was contagious and when she told my dh to grab my knees and pull them back toward my head so she could see he did what she asked- and right at that moment my body birthed the very large shoulders of our son and ripped my vagina wide open. The sutures ripped out on day 2. I had an unstitched 3rd degree tear.
For our 4th birth I was over it. I knew what I wanted and I refused to consider anything less. After our 4th child was born I was over the moon!
by the time we got to birth 5 my dh was highly supportive of unassisted birth. We made a plan to prevent tearing and IT WORKED!
Recovery from vaginal birth with no significant tears is very rapid!
This is the first time I've not torn in a big way and I still feel frustrated to know that all the tears I've encountered could have been avoided. I hate that I couldn't just 'know' or that no one thought to 'talk me into' birthing as my body was intended to birth. I'm sad that I had to go seeking this knowledge and that it was not just 'understood' in our culture. I'm disappointed that I have to be thought of as a 'danger' to myself and my unborn by the medical establishment despite all scientific research pointing in the exact opposite direction-that the danger lies with unnecessary interventions. I can not stand that I am considered a freak, on the fringe, and weird for doing what is completely healthy and natural. And I am saddened every time I hear a woman tell me how 'brave' I was to birth my way. That she wished she could do that but that she was too worried or couldn't take the pain or was unsupported in her choice.
So no, I don't think of it as luck. It is a situation that I am in after 9 long years of hard lessons learned, research and sacrifice.

I hate that you are suffering. I wish for healing for your body and your soul. This is a long life we are living. There is time for the healing you are seeking.

During my second pregnancy I would feel this screaming urge to pee every day when I went for my 3 mile hike with our first child in the jogging stroller. One day I decided I was just going to pee every time the urge hit me. I put on a long skirt and took off. The first time I felt the urge to go, I stepped behind a tree or bush and just peed. It was such a relief. After a week or so of doing this all of the sudden I noticed I was stopping less and less to pee. Eventually the urge left me completely. It was like I was holding the anxiety about getting too far from the toilet in my bladder. Once I was set free from having to hold it the whole hour I started to notice the urge less and less.

I had this urge again recently- before I got pregnant with our 5th- when I was running distance on the treadmill. I would get into a good jog and then bam the urge would be overwhelming- I would get off the treadmill and go pee and then feel better. Over time this urge also left me. You can probably search my posts and read all about it.

anyway, just a thought. Maybe give it a try. I know it's counter to all the bladder training ideas- but if the problem is more a mind/body thing it may actually help.

I think we need to clarify what we mean by 'normal vaginal birth'. By the sound of it, christinabf, yours was not that.
there is an element of luck involved, obviously there are some cases where a baby must be born via c/s (although not the almost 50% that are born in my area via c/s). there is luck when a new mom finds herself with a provider that supports and promotes active labor and birth. there is luck when a woman has a mother, sister, friend or doula who can share experience and she has the opportunity to make choices she might not otherwise know exist. there is luck when things just happen to go well.
but ime, you cannot always rely on luck. my first vaginal delivery was awfully traumatic for me (though not objectively awful when I read stories like your own). my second, with a mw, was marginally better in the physical sense, but emotionally a whole 'nother ball of wax because I MADE CHOICES. I chose where and how I labored. I made choices about my delivery. I chose a mw who kept the OB out even when he was yelling that this needed to be a forceps delivery and I chose to forgo meds so I could work with my body.
baby number three was even better, I chose a homebirth, I chose to shore up my physical well being before pg, and was careful to be good to my body in preparation for labor.
baby number four, was an awesome experience because my mw came too late. I was in complete control of the event (well, along with the baby and G-d if you're into that sort of thing). and THAT is what I call 'normal vaginal delivery'. meaning, a healthy mother making choices well in advance of labor, making choices and decisions that help promote and maximize the chances of safe birth with minimal complications. yes, luck still plays a role, nobody can control for everything. bad things can still happen to anyone at any time. but we still buckle our babies up in rear facing car seats even though sometimes a baby on a lap fares ok in a crash and sometimes even the rear facing buckled babies sustain injuries.
to me, normal vaginal delivery is what the female body was designed to do. messing with it by adding interventions and cultural norms that impede a mothers natural instincts result in a vaginal delivery that isnt quite (to my definition) normal. and that's when people start to wonder why its any better than a c/s. aside from the risks alemama mentions, a normal vaginal delivery is something a woman does, a c/s is something done to a woman. and emotionally, those are very different experiences.
when I read your description of your birth experience, what pops out at me is that it wasnt your choice. right then and there is where it starts to go wrong. birth needs to be about the woman and her choices. while I believe homebirthing is the best thing since sliced bread, if you dont want it, its not good for YOU. I'm not sure that forcing a vbac on a woman who prefers another section is a great idea either.
I'm sorry that things went so wrong for you. It took me a very long time (and two more positive birth experiences) to heal from my first labor and delivery. I hope you heal soon, emotionally and physically. birth stays with us for a looooong time.
{{{{{hugs}}}}}}

I mostly lurk, but your post is bringing me out of hiding.

My births were also not normal. The first resulted in a 3rd degree tear, but a lot went wrong, IMO, leading up to that. I was on my back the whole time - not because of an epidural, which I didn't have. They just told me to lie down and I did. The baby never moved down. After I was stuck at 9 cm for a couple of hours, the doctor broke my water. 15 minutes of the most horrific sensations I could ever have imagined, and he was out. I screamed at the top of my lungs. It was anything but gentle.

The doctor told me he was born too fast because I didn't get the epidural and couldn't control my pushing.

It was about a year before I could talk about that birth without crying.

With my second, I got the epi. I was on my back again, but when labor slowed and pit didn't work, the nurse sat me up a smidge. Lo and behold, I felt him move down and labor picked up again. I realized the most unnatural thing about my first birth was probably lying flat on my back through labor.

With the second the nurses told me I wouldn't push - I would "labor down" to save my pelvic floor. Then the doctor arrived and she and three nurses YELLED AT ME to push. There was no emergency. There was no issue with his heart rate on the monitor. There was no problem whatsoever, except the doctor - whom I had never met and who never introduced herself before sitting between my legs - wanted it over. They put me flat on my back with my feet in stirrups.

I only had a second degree tear, but that was quickly followed by prolapse a few days later. Sex has never been the same since my second; I am much looser down there and worry all the time that my husband can tell. He would never admit it.

Would I have a C-section if I could do it over? Yes. In a heartbeat.
Is vaginal birth the problem? No. The problem is the medical model is better at C-sections than they are at vaginal births. I believe my body could have done this, I could have done this, with the right expertise and patience and support. I am so angry - four years after the second, seven after the first - that I still can barely talk about obstetricians without my blood pressure going through the roof.

I have struggled with really hating myself for not having done it the "right" way - for letting all my Bradley classes go right out the window when faced with the authority of the doctors and nurses. I think if I'd only stood up for myself, insisted on doing it differently, I wouldn't have this problem now. I wouldn't feel so broken. A lot of natural childbirth stuff just makes me feel like more of a failure, because I didn't do it right.

So I understand where you're coming from. I would never have a vaginal birth in a hospital again. We're done with kids, so it isn't an issue.

But - I do believe the problem is not with vaginal birth. It's with the fact that doctors give almost no thought to the pelvic floor. Every question I've ever had about pelvic floor issues has been answered with a "but don't worry, there's surgery to fix that." They don't care.

End of rant. Just wanted you to know you're not alone in wondering what the "hype" is.

Edited to Add: I just searched back and read your initial post. I am so, so sorry for what you went through. No, that definitely was not normal, and I don't blame you for wondering what the hype is. I know how traumatized I was, and my story isn't anywhere near what you went through. (((HUGS)))

I wasn't going to comment on this thread because it was so well covered by others, but I wanted to welcome you and say that imo you express a fundamental reality beautifully:

"I do believe the problem is not with vaginal birth. It's with the fact that doctors give almost no thought to the pelvic floor. Every question I've ever had about pelvic floor issues has been answered with a 'but don't worry, there's surgery to fix that.' They don't care."

Also, OBs are no longer trained to birth breech babies vaginally and uterine rupture is a risk of VBAC - a risk that has increased with the more expedient way the uterus has been closed over the last ten or fifteen years of c-sectioning.

Hi christinabf,

Thank you for reminding us that there are statistics, and then there are individuals. That there are exceptions to every rule. I cannot begin to fathom what you have/are going through, and so I know that any sort of “I’m sorry” for your situation could come across as trite. However, I do feel for you and this unwanted journey. You have to be one of the strongest women I have ever encountered, and I respect that you are questioning the means that brought you to this place. And, I am mortified that the health care profession I am about to enter did not advocate for your wishes prior to the VBAC you did not want, nor did someone step in to change the plan of care when what I assume what must have been clear physiological signs that your vaginal birth was not going well occurred. Even the most vehement vaginal-birth- supporting practitioners I know still realize that there is a time to “call it” when necessary.

All of this gibberish I’m about to write is not meant to make you or anyone else change their mind. I certainly do not want to be told how to birth by someone else! But I did want to explain a little of what my experiences in the hospital have done to form my opinions of surgical birth.

I am not against cesarean birth per se. I think that there are valid life-threatening situations in which it is a true gift, even including for women who are physically capable, but with prior severe birth and/or sexual traumas. But I also think that one can never ethically advocate for elective cesarean over a vaginal birth. There really are just so many more risks involved that are attached to cesarean birth and not to vaginal birth. The United States has one of the highest c-section rates, along with *the* highest rate of maternal death among industrialized nations. The most recent statistic is 1 in 2,100 mothers die of pregnancy/birth related causes in the US. I think this points to a definite correlation, if not causation.

I will officially be a registered nurse in a few weeks, and I have put my time in at the Labor & Delivery unit. Now, I happen to have seen the worst of the worst of sections. If I never have to hold a trash can for a father of several young children to vomit into while they tell him how his young wife’s heart has stopped for the fifth time, the hospital has run out of blood products to give her, and she is too unstable to transport her to a bigger facility, it will be too soon. In what is truly a miracle, this woman survived, though her life will not be remotely the same. Her entire blood volume was replaced, and she was airlifted, abdominal incisions wide open and leaving her uterus behind. She had an amniotic fluid embolism. This does not happen in vaginal birth. Yes, things can go very, horribly wrong in vaginal birth, but fatality is much, much more common in a section.

The words “risky” and “major surgery” get thrown around so much that they lose meaning. A c-section is considered major surgery, which means it is in the same category as an organ transplant. That’s huge. Few people realize how a section is done. After the first small incision, it takes two physicians pulling with all their might to rip the abdominal muscles open enough for the procedure. Once baby is out, the uterus comes out too. It is actually outside of the woman’s body for around 10 minutes while it is dried off with towels and sutured. The doctor has a fair idea of where to replace it, but there is no exact science. In an orthopedic surgery, x-rays are done to make sure the surgeon gets it right. In spinal or neurological surgery, there is constant monitoring of neural activity to make sure no mistakes are made. No one ever takes a post-cesarean woman for an MRI to make sure her organs were put back correctly.

As a nurse, I have about 4 pages more of things I need to be concerned about and intervene for in a surgical birth than a spontaneous vaginal birth. I am worried about antibiotic reactions, anesthesia reactions, pain medication reactions, blood clots, pulmonary embolisms, paralytic bowels, infection at the sites of incisions, IVs, and spinal, infection from a nicked bowel or bladder, hemorrhage, DIC (where your body has used up all of it’s abilities to clot and you start to bleed from every opening), dehiscence of the incision (it opens and organs spill out), and pneumonia. Evidence-based research shows that these things are so likely in a surgical birth that preventative measures are included in standardized treatment pathways so that the hospital will not get their panties sued off. That same research shows these things are so unlikely in vaginal birth that there is no need to provide similar interventions for them.

As for the question regarding feelings of empowerment – there is an actual identified, but not fully understood, cascade of hormones that is released during vaginal birth that does not appear to occur in cesarean. I do not know if this has anything to do with it, but I strongly expect it is so (assuming of course, that they are not having the kind of vaginal trauma that you experienced). I also think it has a lot to do women feeling as though they are the ones who made the birth happen, rather then being someone that things were done to. I personally hate when someone says, “the doctor who delivered my baby.” I want to scream, “YOU delivered your baby! All (s)he did was make sure it didn’t fall on the floor!”

I think queenmother hit the nail on the head. OBs *are* trained surgeons. Surgical birth is where they excel. Their success with vaginal birth varies greatly. I often have conflicting feelings about working in a hospital L&D ward. On one hand, I think I could be an incredible advocate for women and work to safeguard them from all the abuses we have mentioned. On the other, I want nothing to do with that world.

Christinabf, I hope you realize that what happened is not your fault. You made decisions based on information given to you by people educated in their field. They are the ones paid to provide your care and are responsible to safeguard your health. They took an oath to do so. I pray you receive justice in this, whatever that means.

"For me, vaginal birth means trauma, being disregarded in the hospital, and being degraded by those who were supposed to support me."

What you went through is far beyond what most people consider a traumatic birth, yet I guarantee that those sentiments are shared by women who were a lot less unlucky. I know it's exactly how I feel. Given that most doctors don't consider my birth experiences particularly "abnormal," I have to imagine that those emotions are not uncommon after what doctors consider "successful" vaginal births.

As to pushing, I really think the purple pushing was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. I had gotten an epi specifically to be able to control pushing, and my previous OB had told me repeatedly to labor down on my next birth. (She'd since retired.) I had no urge to push and I didn't want to push, and the baby was moving with each contraction. There was no need. And believe it or not - I had a doula!! Both times!!! But in my area, the doulas' hands are really tied. If the mother doesn't speak up for herself, the doula can't or won't because it irritates the doctor, which gives doulas a bad name, which threatens their ability to keep doing what they do... I never had one advocate for me, just hold my hand. My husband whispered in my ear "You don't have to push," but I didn't have the confidence to listen to him over the four people yelling at me. And he's not a confrontational type, so he wasn't going to ask what was up with the yelling any more than I was.

Anyway, I can't tell you I know what you're going through, because I don't. I will tell you that I'm still dealing with my own experiences psychologically, and my younger son is four and a half. Other people are going to expect you to get over it. You will learn, with time, who you can talk to when you are down, and who to avoid because they just don't get it.

I am much better now, but I used to just feel like I was being eaten alive with jealousy. I had wanted more children, and we couldn't swing it - largely because of not having the resources to deal with my hyperemesis, which is a whole other story but makes pregnancy feel like torture. I still sometimes feel the sting of tears trying to break through when a mom talks about how she never had a day of morning sickness or how perfectly her delivery went. I've discovered that the best thing I can do is let myself have those feelings. I didn't get the pregnancies or the births I wanted. I'm jealous of those who did. It feels horribly unfair, and there are still days - though fewer now, thank goodness - when I just want to scream at the top of my lungs and stamp my feet and have a big old tantrum. There's no magic way to make those feelings disappear any faster.

Let yourself feel what you feel, let it be a part of the whole person you are, and then love yourself. It's the best any of us can do, I think.

I so agree with that last comment: 'Let yourself feel what you feel.. then love yourself'. Ironically, I had a good first vaginal birth in hospital ( two lovely midwives who listened to me and respected me all the way through). Yes, I [probably sustained the bit of damage there that eventually led to my urethrocele - baby's head v BIG - born with one arm up - but I don't think it is always possible to avoid some trauma and it wad very minor compared to some of the heartwrenching birth stories people have shared here.

Second labour was awful. Big post mature baby, off hand hospital midwife who showed no compassion, respect or interest - husband arrived late so I was alone for most of it. Eventually given diamorphine and urged to push, push push when I was on a heroin trip and it was a posterior birth and everything was telling me not to - but I was too stoned to assert myself. I'd naively thought that all midwives would be as caring as my first, six years before.

So, I had post natal depression, didn't bond with daughter for about a year, she was a very unsettled baby and has remained a very unsettled child. Don't know how much of this was due to actual birth. I had begged for a caesarian but been fobbed off because of a textbook first birth. Maybe it was just as well - but i really needed interest, care, resepct and to be encouraged to work with my body. Maybe my dd and I would always have had a rocky time together - nothing to do with the birth.

Anyway, I;ve felt guilty for how much it has effected me for ten years. Guilty because I didn't have awful physical after effects and neither did my daughter. Guilty because so many women suffer much worse. Guilty that I felt so jealous of the yummy celebrity mummies with their simultaneous caesarians and tummy tucks and of the natural birthers with wonderful home births. This thread has let me stop feeling sad about it. I was let down, it hurt me and I will try and help my daughter to have a better experience. But now I've said it, I can move on. There is so much more to our lives as women and mothers than the day of birth.

But we should be all actively campaigning any way we can for future birth to be better - even if we're finished with the birth thing ourselves. I think the women who point out that obstetricians and midwives don't care about our bodies because they believe they can 'fix' them afterwards are right. It is like us modern computer users who forget all about our touch typing lessons at school because now nobody uses a typewriter anymore and all mistakes can be fixed we don't need to take care. They do need to start taking care again.

Doubtful

SOrry for typos - in big hurry and illustrates my point.

My gosh, Doubtful, what a tremendous illustration you gave with the typing and how no one cares about mistakes anymore because they can be easily righted afterward!!

IT IS so with our bodies during birth!

And you hit it right on the head, this feeling of our bodies somehow don't matter.

An interesting thing happened for me while I was reading your post just now. I realized for the first time, that I am over my birth story - but much more importantly that I hadn't even realized I'm over it because I had finally gotten over it years ago....and never really marked the occasion of finally forgetting it.

I was traumatized by birth. But in great part because I didn't feel ANY woman had told me what it's REALLY like. I had a fairy tale vision of it, ya know?

I believe it probably took ten years for me to get over it. And when I did, there was no marker, no occasion, no noticing it. It wasn't until just now, reading your post, that I remembered with emotion how very, very difficult I found it. How abandoned I felt. How betrayed by my husband (for sleeping for the first couple of hours!! We arrived at the hospital at 7 am!! Why did he settle on the sofa to sleep except for escape?) The nurses at a local hospital who talked about Chinese food in front of me, and gossip, and other patients...as if THEY needed to have THEIR minds taken off things. I had to say, "excuse me," ..."excuse me," to get their attention all the time. (And this at a local hospital that was recently closed and all the people here put pressure on people to say o we need that hospital reopen it! I am so tempted to hang a sign that says reopen the hospital ONLY IF YOU GET NEW STAFF! Those nurses SUCKED! LOL).

The dr who told me to push WAY TOO EARLY. When i was five cm!! When I later asked WHY ON EARTH she did that she answered, "To give you something to do! To take your mind off things!!!"

I said, "Pushing does damage! You should not have told me to push 'for nothing'

And she said, "O? It does damage? You think?"

Argg!!

Across the hall I could hear my friend from laMaze SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS, "Stop! Stop! Stop! How dare you say I am lying! I am telling you I am not numb! Of COURSE THE EPIDIDURAL DIDN'T WORK! How else do i know what you are doing right now? You are cutting me with a kniiiiiifffe!"

[Insert sounds of screaming here!]

And there I was with the epidural guy who had just told me, "All you women want epidurals at the last minute. Well you can't have it. And how can you all expect that you are going to have births without pain? childbirth IS pain. Get over it!"

Yeah, THAT'S what I was dealing with, in this little local hospital with a sound asleep husband, nurses deciding they are tired of General Tso's chicken, and a doctor who wasn't seen except to tell me to push to early. I could go on and on. It gets worse. lol

For ten years, I walked around with anger in me about it as no one seemed to even want to hear the story and I REALLY wanted to tell someone! : )

But it was neat just now to realize, wow, it's been ten years since I told my birth story and ten years since I have felt the anger. I take with me that feeling of the medical community and their giant egos and blind belief in how they were schooled. But I don't feel that anger, that cheated feeling anymore.

Except now (lol) I DO feel subtle anger at alllllllllll the doctors who I told ever since I was seventeen years old about a very, very, very troubling heaviness in my legs. And the shocking inability to stand for long.

Even as recently as five weeks ago I was madly googling "tired legs," and "can't stand up long," etc. Anything. Sigh. If only I'd found it a few months ago.

There's a lot of grief in this. And I do feel a bit of that "o crap this sucks" feeling about the fact I had JUST gotten past the grief stage about my husband dying. I'd just within a few weeks got to the point where I could talk about it freelly, think about it without crying, and had that "ready to move on" feeling even though I always hated the phrase "move on."

Funny thing is this POP is bringing on the grief for my mom, which I never experienced, because my husband was diagnosed as terminal just 60 days after my mom died.

It's like o crap, now I am realizing my mother wasn't not only a bad, lazy person, she's probably my personal hero for going through all this while no one understood, including me! lol O, man, I don't need anymore bittersweet emotions! ha

This is the first Mother's Day I realize, wow, I could really express it finally to my mother, if she were here. That I get it now. It would have been my first, real Mother's Day with her if you know what I mean. : )

Hi Christina

Reading your post again made me angry for you all over again, but also reinforced my theory that in 50 years maternity services have got much worse, not better, at least here in the UK and, by the sound of it, the US. We have a chronic shortage of midwives here, but it's not just that - it's a cultural change among nurses generally - they are technicians but don't do any of the nurturing things women, or patients in general, need. They don't talk, and they most assuredly don't listen.

After my second awful birth ( in a small town maternity unit where NO other babies were born that night) my husband was sent home for the night and was not allowed back with my son until the next afternoon. My midwife not only largely ignored me during birth, but completely afterwards. Whoozy with morphine, and with a very distressed baby who I now think was coming down from morphine, I was attached to a drip to deal with a massive bleed. As I bled all over my bed and my daughter got very distressed in the cot beside me, I buzzed repeatedly to ask if someone could comfort her and someone else could help me to the loo/ clean me up. When she eventually arrived the mw proudly told me that it wasn't like the bad old days where babies are taken to nurseries, now mothers learned to bond with their babies and take responsibility for them. She said I could walk my drip, and wheel the cot, into the toilet!

AT the end of a long night, having had no sleep because of her loud discussion of her diet, my bleeding body and my screaming baby whom I was trying to feed and trying not to drop as I was still whoozy, she did reappear, to ask if she could borrow my newspaper.

The next day I fainted trying to wheel baby and drip to the toilet. The midwife who was filling in paperwork with a labouring mother opposite made no move to help me - I was not on her list, but told me to pull myself up by the cot , wheel it back to my bed and climb in and wait for a midwife from the assigned team. When my husband and son arrived I had fallen asleep,was bleeding dangerously, my daughter was beside herself and no-one had come to help us. How can a mother and child have a good start in life in these circumstances?

MY mother reports six births in the fifties/ sixties - three at home and three in hospital where mothers were looked after- it was considered important to nurse the babies for them while they caught up on their sleep, help them wash if they were weak, feed them ( I didn't eat much for three days because the canteen was down the hall and I felt so weak - narrowly avoided a transfusion when a doctor finally looked at me - so breastfeeding took ages to establish so daughter in real state.)

None of this is rocket science - any family member, husband/ mother would help a new mother in the first few days - not making them lazy or inactive, just helping them to rest and recover so that they could nurture their babies. Women with modern hospital births, particularly where there are complications and they have to stay in for a few days, seem to emerge exhausted and humiliated and there's no need. It all comes down to listening to mothers and treating them like human beings, not nuisances to be processed.

I know this doesn't help you much Christina, but it's part of a patter of disrespect by the whole obstetric and gynaecological establishment that seems to be giving women a very raw deal nowadays. I'd never want to return to the situation where women and babies died unnecessarily for lack of medical intervention - and that does still happen all over the developing world, but medical professionals, if and when they are needed to help at birth, have to do better than this.

Loved your post. I agree. Nurturing is a necessary part of nursing but they seem to really balk at that. (I also noted in my mother's days of giving birth, women stayed in the hospital a week. And my mother said the nurses really took care of everyone and helped, and TAUGHT you what to do!!! These nurses I had taught NOTHING. I was DEFINITELY sent home too early, too. I begged my doctor to let me stay. One of my arguments was I could not even FIND my vagina! I was so incredibly swollen that nothing was reachable, never mind identifiable. A nurse took a look and said, you know it's true, this is bad. But the doctor shrugged and sent me home. Whole lotta shruggin' going on in the medical world, egh? lol I find myself really wondering if a lot of the women having prolapse after birth isn't excerbated by how early they go home. It's too much to do all the things we have to right after birth).

I had that same experience with nurses using the excuse of how lucky I was to have access to my baby, when really, I was unable to care for her.

The first night I held her all night long. I always told my daughter it was because I loved her so much.

It is true but without this part of the equation. I loved her so much I did not drop her or roll on top of her. I clung to her, awake all night because I could not get up out of the bed to put her back in the bassinet and the nurses would not respond to my call button. When I finally got one I got the lecture about how priviledged I was. What the nurses did not realize is that I was somehow left off the list and everytime they brought babies to and from the other mothers, they never came to pick mine up. So I had her constantly. Through trying to eat, trying to go to the bathroom. It was a nightmare. I was so afraid she was goign to get hurt. I finally yelled at a nurse that I had not slept in 24 hours and that if my baby got hurt through my dropping her I would personally sue her.

Whoosh the baby was back in the nursery. Then I guess they were teachign me a lesson because after I FINALLY slept, I could not get her back when all the other babies were being brought to their mothers.

Truth is they were so horrible to me I came out of the hospital HATING nurses. lol I felt like they are all a bunch of lazy-a, self-centered know-it-alls. Of course that is the nurses at THAT hospital.They went out of biz and no one wants to admit it's cause the service SUCKED.

The nurses were using the excuse of how much better it is than the old days to get out of work, is what they were doing.

Then they complained terribly and all denied it could be true when I complained I had ZERO SENSATION of having to pee. Zero and that time had gone by and that I felt something was wrong.

The doctor, the nurses, everyone said stop worrying let nature take its course.

Well two days later I hinted at suing my doctor and lo and behold she had the nurses check it out with a cathetere. I mean isn't it ridiculous the paitent is DEMANDING a catheter? I knew NOTHING of such things but was demanding that somehow someone had to get urine out of me even though I felt nothing wwrong physically. Just how can you go two full days without peeing? Something was wrong, I knew it.

So the nurses filled soooooooooooooo many bags that they say it was just preposterous and that it seemed fully impossible to them that my bladder had not burst.

Do you know what they were doing as they filled bag after bag?

LAUGHING.

Hysterically.

I was crying.

I mean, I really, hate those nurses. It was so inhumane. And they were talking about themselves to me as if they were amazing nurses and how nice they are. i was thinking yeah, nice TO EACH OTHER.

Even now in my current doctor's office, the DOCTOR is nice. The nurse should have a "How may I (not) help you?" button on her scrubs.

And nurturing? That's what I fully think they should be doing! Like for your daughter on the cot next to you. How scared she must have been!!! And I think nurses see that stuff as lowering themselves, but those are very important things and they DO contribute to the well being of the patient!

Those nurses were forcing me into the warm shower because it had felt good to THEM when THEY gave birth. But each birth is individual and I hated being in that shower. It felt clinical to me to be naked and doused with water, leaning against a cold, hard tile wall in the darkened corner. I hated that.

What I felt like doing was pacing in front of the TV area. lol I'd rather have heard an interesting TV show in between contractions than their gossip. And I just wanted to pace, pace, pace with my own comfy long flannel shirt on and slipper socks, where I could hold on when I needed to, where I could hear my own breathing not just the loudness of a shower in an echoing shower room, and where I could be glancing at my husband but mostly looking at the ground and rubbing my own lower back. Was it so much to ask? lol lol That was the way I was coping with the pain best. They kept saying, o you'll fall, o the tv is just annoying (a talk show), o the shower's much better.......

So I agree totally, but, then my experience was a while ago! : ) I had been hoping things are better for women now. The birth room was a new thing in this area back then. I'd love to be able to tell those nurses what a lousy experience it was for me. But, knowing how it all was and how self-absorbed they were, they'd probably just think I was a complainer. : )

The story gets worse, but I'll spare you. Suffice it to say after all that I went thro, when I was finally brought back to my new room after, a nurse walked in to my room and complained to me that she had accidentally stabbed herself with a pencil. On and on about how she hurt herself with a pencil jabbing into her arm. She showed me a tiny invisible dot where the pencil must have bumped into her. She wanted a response of sympathy and empathetic horror. lol But I just starred at her. lol I had a lot more restraint in those days! : )

We are all responsible for the state of maternity care in our community and the world. There are so many amazing groups advocating for birth choices for women. Karen Brody started a moment called BOLD. Check her out. Support her if you can. There are others. Watch the business of being born. Talk with midwives in your home town. Let them know your stories. Organize a 'red tent' and gather with other women to share birth stories like we are doing right here. Together we can make a change! Red tent gatherings are amazing. Organize one for the next full moon. It's powerful.

I can't speak about hospital births, I've not had one myself. I've heard about them plenty and know there's good and bad depending on who you talk to.

Doubtful said "none of this is rocket science - any family member, husband/ mother would help a new mother in the first few days - not making them lazy or inactive, just helping them to rest and recover so that they could nurture their babies."
I agree. Our baby is a little over two weeks old now and today is the first day I've cooked a meal since her birth. She and I have been resting in bed just nursing, eating, and staring at each-other. Then we go outside and take family walk and sit in the sun and watch the kids play. That's our day. I hold her, talk to her, the kids come in at will and visit with us, dh brings food, we watch movies, I read books. I wouldn't ever consider that lazy or inactive. I am doing the most important thing I can do right now- resting, healing, recovering and bonding. I've been very reluctant to share her at all with anyone -even the kids. But everyone is pretty persistent around here so in the end I 'have to' share her sometimes.
My mother is visiting today and she held the baby while I cooked lunch. It felt good to cook for everyone but now I am back in bed with my sweet baby and that feels even better.

I hate the trauma mothers and babies have to go through and I am working to end that trauma.
Freebirth y'all!

Alemama- that is lovely that you can be with your baby resting, healing, and loving her. That's how it should be.When our family lived in Malaysia we found it was the custom(of those we knew) to have a special maid live in for a month and look after the new mother and baby.She did not tend to the rest of the family, they had another maid for the family.The mother did not shower for a month, so eg my husband;s workmates said we should not visit as we wouldn't be use to the odour lol. Now Im not sure this applied to everyone as there were a mix of cultures there and it was Chinese Malays I knew of.Although I am pretty sure my Malay maid told me this was norm.
I use to go weekly , with friends, to Chinese Malay reflexologoists, and they said we white foreign women were on our feet too soon after birth, and why we got so many veins on our legs .We did wonder....I know I was home between 1-3 days after birth of my 3 children.And straight back into everything from washing to housework to shopping, no help hardly at all.
Csf- yep I feel as angry and sad as you reading about your story and many others here. I try to keep that in balanced perspective.At times that is hard,
I feel particularly sensitive at mo as I have good news that our daughter is expecting our first grandchild, and doesn't really want to hear my stories from here.I am trying to gently say, to be prepared about what she wants and feels is right for her and ready to say no to what she doesn't feel right.She is a pretty strong female, and I hope she can.I think she can.She mentioned a water birth the other day, after I said not to have her baby lying down.Lol she demoe-d how she intended, what a hoot, I love her to bits!We are becoming closer, she has done Christine's original workout once or twice with me last year.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2409165/

It is hard to ask Christinabf's initial question without the alarm bells going off. Sure, we are not all in the USA, but a significant percentage are.

hi been lurking for awhile ,this is my first post,yay!
with regards to the nerve damage you speak of,i was totally numb after the birth of my second.i had to place my hand over my vagina when doing kegals so i knew something was moving.couldnt feel anything during sex to the point he might have well as been in another room,lol!
this numbness lasted 18months and i do feel the EMS unit i was using at the time help greatly.dont be hard on yourself ,you've had a horrible time of it. i think how our head deals with these problems can prove to be more vital than how the body does.
for me,it has been 3yrs now, nerve damage gone, working on bladder prolapse and rectocile (spelling?)getting better all the time. but the emotional upset from it all has been the hardest thing to deal with. give your body time and love ,things will improve.
fingers crossed for you
mushi

Mushi! So glad you posted!

Thanks for sharing with us. And always so good to hear about someone getting better, better.....

And yes, the mental anguish of this is really a challenge! Time for me to be thinking about my appointment today, I guess. Oh, how I wish work would call. : ) So I would know if I can afford to postpone this appointment again.

As for that numbness, btw, for me that lasted a long time. I was able to pee not too much later, but I had numbness around the episiotomy area for a long time after. And it was swollen for what seemed like forever. I remember a funny moment of my husband looking at me there and saying, "Where IS everything?" lol We both laughed. He said it was like it all disappeared because of all the swelling. He was really cute about it. Thank goodness for our humor about it. I remember a nurse walking in and my saying I dared her to FIND anything down there. And then the dr walking in and my saying the same thing. And all of them looking and my laughing and thinking to myself, ok life doesn't get any weirder than the three of them looking and laughing. Little did I know that POP would be a much, much funnier rabbit hole to fall into! lol If anyone had told me just wait years from now you'll be trying to lie down upside down, etc, I would not have been able to wrap my head around it. Wait, I still can't wrap my head around it. hahaha

http://www.hulu.com/watch/235715/pregnant-in-america

wow alemama. that's some video!! thanks@

Hi Christina, I just read your post and absolutely agree. I had a CS with my first child. Everything fine, then similar experience with my second child. Absolute horror. I have not sued my hospital, but thought about it a lot.
I was wondering if you could get rid of your symptoms, esp. the constant need to urinate in upright body position? I have been suffering from this for the past 7 years now and I am really about to freak out and ready to do anything. Did you find something that helped you with this, cause I would try the same treatment immediately then.
Thanks and all the best for you!
Loulou

Hi Christina,
I read your posts yesterday, since I am quite a new user of wholewoman.com. I have been suffering from exactly the same symptoms like you after giving birth to my 2nd child (1st one was CS like yours), the birth was terrible, forceps, vagina torn, large episiotomy... hell!
I have been searching relief or help (given up on expecting a cure) for my constant urge to urinate. I even underwent surgery. I have been searching the Internet over the past 7 years (the delivery was in 2005), and now I finally read your post and could not believe that there is at least 1 woman in the world who suffers from the same symptoms. Maybe you have been able to find a cure? Or at least treamtment? What did help you? I tried almost everything, but nothing really helped.
Thank you and all the best for you!
loulouandcharles

Apparently there used to be a way of direct messaging on the forums, but that feature was removed as part of the last upgrade. Louise offers a manual service where she emails people directly and links them up that way. Since christinabf posted some time ago, perhaps this might be the way to go loulou.

Thank you Loulou, I'm really glad you posted to this thread, giving me the opportunity to read it. It's amazing to read these detailed honest descriptions of birth experiences. Thank you to everyone who wrote them. I wonder if this forum will be around when my daughter is at child-bearing age... I would love to show her. Sometimes daughters don't like to listen to their mamas, but they might read what others have written...

I think the cesarian/vaginal birth issue is an interesting one. I was just talking to a friend the other day and she said she doesn't talk about her cesarians unless people directly ask her. She feels like it is something she should be ashamed of, but actually she feels very positive about it. Her recovery was good and she has not had any issues since. I thought it is quite weird that society is shaming her into being silent about this. This got me thinking about increasing cesarian rates which are always quoted as a "bad thing" (TM), but doesn't this statistic only mean something if it is associated with a negative outcome? For me it would be more useful to see rates of POP quoted or sexual disfunction or UI or whatever, something that is concrete. I sometimes think about the birth of my first child when the obstetrician loomed over me telling me he had bad news for me and I said weakly, it's going to be a cesarian isn't it? And he said no episiotomy and forceps. And I was relieved! I think Christine wrote somewhere on these forums that in many cases a cesarian would be preferable to an instrumental delivery. So perhaps as well as quotes of cesarian rates we should see quotes of instrumental deliveries and be trying to get those down.

Sorry this is a bit stream of consciousness - I only had a few minutes. But thanks again.

Hi Curiosity - I wanted to set the record straight (possibly) - I doubt that Christine ever would have stated that C-section would in many cases be preferable to an instrumental delivery. If she has, maybe someone can locate that statement so we can make sure it's not being taken out of context? - Surviving

I cannot remember Christine saying that C section would in many cases be preferable to an instrumental delivery. However, I have read, heard and experienced enough horror stories of mismanaged vaginal births with large episiotomies done specifically so that forceps could be used easily, resulting in further tearing. I have also heard of women who have not prepared themselves well for vaginal birth and 'lost it' half way through the labour and ended up 'hysterical' with a distressed baby and the need for surgical intervention to get the baby out. I have heard of women not allowed by hospital staff to be active during labour, resulting in ineffective labour . I have heard of women who have not understood the implications of certain interventions, like cord traction resulting in uterine inversion and the mother's heartbeat stopping during a helicopter trip to a well-equipped city hospital, on these Forums and in real life.

Many of these problems are because of ignorance on the part of hospital staff, draconian hospital policies, women not knowing enough about labour and birth to be able birth vaginally, confident in the ability of their body to deliver, and plain old communication problems, perhaps involving Staff shift changes during labour, or language difficulties or various other factors. All these things can go wrong in a poor quality hospital vaginal birth. Strangely, homebirths seem to be safer simply because there are no routine interventions and the woman who embarks on a homebirth has to be comfortable with her body, her midwife and the process of confidently birthing vaginally. Many women would only home birth when they had a hospital nearby, and many midwife schemes insist that there are protocols for transferring a labouring woman to hospital if found to be necessary.

It is easy to see how a woman who is ignorant of the birth process, does not handle pain well, doesn't have a good relationship with her own body, does not feel supported and encouraged by her partner or other family, may have a mother who is very pro CS, or has had vaginal birth go badly wrong, would choose CS, because everything is 'under control' and much more predictable with a CS. Sure, CS is major abdominal surgery, and yes, there are risks, but the woman needs to work out what risks she is or is not prepared to take, either with vaginal or CS birth. If they do not know what the risks are, then they need to find out, before they go into labour or into the operating theatre!!

I have heard of so many women who have had good C sections that it is easy to see that a CS can be a good birth, which leaves little damage in the vaginal / perineal area, despite a big belly scar and long recovery period.

I have had one fully managed labour with big epi and forceps, and birthing on my back, when I developed pre-eclampsia with my first. I felt like a tethered hamster and was just another onlooker at the birth. I didn't feel involved at all, but we both came out of it alive and well. Overall - disappointing.

The second was induced by breaking the sac but was otherwise a normal, active and lovely vaginal delivery.

The third was completely spontaneous labour and posterior vaginal birth. This was the icing on the cake.

Would I have a CS? Not if you paid me, even though I now have all three celes (that are all well controlled). for me, spontaneous vaginal birthing ranks in the top three things to experience in life. I feel so privileged and thankful to have experienced it. Other women may be throwing up at the very thought of what I have just said.

Louise

I'm not throwing up at what you wrote Louise :-) I am glad you are happy with where you are at. Acceptance of the challenges life throws at us is (IMO) one of the best tools we have.

I did a search and could not find where Christine had said what I thought she did, so either I am dreaming or it got deleted. I did find a post of yours Surviving where you said you would have considered c- section if you could have avoided prolapse but I'm guessing you have changed your mind a bit since then.

Anyway, I still think it's unfortunate that my friend (who didn't choose her first c-section btw) doesn't feel she can speak about her experience. And also I do think the quoting of these stats should be linked to some outcome (positive or negative). And not assume that the outcomes associated with an episiotomy are necessarily better than those with a c-section.

Hi Curiosity - Yes you are correct, I can recall making such a statement but that was as a relatively new member some time ago. I do not say that now, for a number of reasons. My entire understanding of prolapse and the many forces than can affect it, has grown enormously. Christine's research has shown that C-section doesn't prevent prolapse and quite frankly, I'm certain I would be no better off today if I had opted to have my uterus sliced open. Certainly better for both mother and baby, in most cases at least, if nature is allowed to take its own course as much as possible.

Ultimately, my prolapse has lead to a wealth of new understanding and appreciation for what the body is capable of. It has brought me to better health and well-being, and I know that is only because I found my way here instead of going down the path so many others have walked. So, even if I were to still cling to a belief that it could have been prevented by C-section, with everything I know, I would not choose it unless someone's life or health was at risk. - Surviving

Yes, I could well have. In fact, as a naive first time Mum in 1982, if an Ob had said that I would avoid prolapse by having a CS I probably would have said OK. Now, that is really scary, because there was no Internet and I would have had no way of checking this. Now I would just laugh in their face, and go find a good midwife.

Louise ;-)

Hi all just popping in as My daughter had a C-Sect. just under a year ago, after wanting a water birth.I talked with Christine about this when I visited her in September, and I don;t think she would encourage C/S.
But here is my experience with my daughter.On the day her waters broke early about 6am ish, she was advised my her midwife to get checked at our local hospital nearby, Im not sure if m/w did it or another as she had a birth at the main hospital in our main city.Anyway as meconium was present (forgive me if I say some things incorrectly, I understand better than I say) they told her to go into the city's hospital.They said no water birth now, and and that point I got a call to come in to be with her and her husband. Im tryign to keep this short as possible , its still am emotional feeling for me, and so when I arrived there she was starting to get stressed as they wanted to put a foetal monitor band round her tum and keep her on the bed. What! she said I can't get off and walk around? and they said..well no! WE managed to let them let her have a short get off and off as far as the band and machine it was attached to would let. I think this was the first hurdle and completely blew her as I see it looking back.Me who had her naturally in a squat from an all fours position. She was in beautiful condition I was told and many came to view her! Anyhow 3 hours after that they said she needed to be induced because nothing was happening and the meconium was present, meaning the baby was or could be in distress. Hours and hours later she had hardly dilated but was having quite strong contractions. The attending m/w, not her own one, did all the correct monitoring and checkign as required but not much more. I and my son in law had to find our way of helping , and not treading on each other toes. The original intention was that I would massage her with the contractions, and I add oils for pregnancy in my bag and a method we'd trialled at home together which she was happy about.As she was not able to get off the bed, she sat off the side with her legs dangling with that monitor band straddling her uncomfortable labouring body, and my heart bled for her, as her body was wracked with labour pains. I found I fell into a rhythm of massaging her back in tune with the contractions which seemed to help some and soothe her, whilst my son in law gave support at her front.12 hours from when I arrived at hospital,lots of pain no action happening, and cutting a long story short, there was talk of trying an epidural as she was getting very tired at this point.Each point of change ie attachment of monitor, then induction drip, then epidurals all involved a new set of stress and tears for my daughter and papers to be signed after discussion from both parties. The first two epidural needles did not insert properly and so when that anaethesist was finishing shift he suggested the fresh starting one taking over might have more success, but it was not guaranteed.Well she did , and eventually with the pain gettign worse and the epidural not really workign fully it was decided and discussed that a C-section would be best and safest. And after all parties had agreed she went to theatre in the early hours of the morning, 16 hours after my arrival there. As only one extra was allowed in theatre with her I stayed in the labour room and waited 3 hours in the quiet fo the night , no staff around, noone,until her oroginal m/w who had popped in and out from another long birth she was attending first, came and told me she'd birthed and then my son in law came and told me and then went back to my daughter and his new son. I learnt that circumstances change and once on a path tis very hard to get off.Also that observing my daughter I had to give her permission to do what suited her and her body at that time.We are different people, its her experience and we have different views. And I must respect the differences .None the less it was very hard to observe.We have discussed the pattern that gets us hooked into the hospital claws, and she does agree that once there it was hard to make a stand as she was so worried something would happen to her unborn baby. And I didn;t want her to be. She also said she had been waiting for my permission, so to speak.
But she said and says that she had a very pleasant C-section experience, compared to all the other preceding stuff she went through.And it was nowhere near as scary as she thought. She also had a lovely female surgeon and the attending staff were all very caring.She is now expecting no 2. I wonder what I will observe next.....

Oh, Kiwigirl. Thankyou so much for posting this account. I don't know quite how to respond. I think you did all the right things. Having an argument with everyone else in the room certainly wouldn't have made it any easiter for your daughter to birth naturally.

"I learnt that circumstances change and once on a path tis very hard to get off." How very true. My first birth, which I can only describe as the 'painfree vaginal forceps extraction method' was supposed to be natural, unmedicated and active. I have an inkling about what caused the pre-eclaampsia that put us on the fully managed labour path. I think it could have been avoided, but did not think of it at the time. I still have difficulty with the disappointment I felt with the change of path. The end result was a healthy baby and a healthy (if cut about) Mum. That was OK.

Fortunately for all of you your daughter is going to have another go. If subsequent labours and births are anywhere near as good as my second and third labours and births, she is in for a 'spine tinglingly good experience'. I hope that this is the case.

Yes, we have done our birthing. We are not our daughters, and our daughters aren't kids any more. They are grown up women who make their own decisions, both bad and good, just as we have done.

Chill. It will be fine. You can all deal with whatever happens. Sometimes life is perfect, sometimes is is imperfect. That's life.

Louise

Your daughter's birth experience sounds very similar to my first one kiwigirl, except that I ended up with episiotomy and forceps instead of the CS. And yes, when circumstances change, getting off the path is very hard if not impossible. Our midwives had warned us about this in our pre-natal classes (they termed it 'cascading interventions') so in a way we felt worse because we were made to feel that we should have been able to avoid getting on the path in the first place. But when they say meconium, what are you going to do? I would be interested to hear what happens when there is meconium in a home birthing situation...

(I also just wanted to clarify that I was never suggesting that Christine would recommend a CS outright - rather that in some cases it would be preferable to an instrumental delivery - but there is the strong possibility that I imagined her saying this :))

First I wanted to say how sorry I am for all your terrible births. It is so sad. I hope you all set aside time to grieve for the loss of your hopes, dreams & expectations. Birth matters. You matter. Anyone who says 'you've got a healthy baby, that's all that matters' is just full of crap.

I have had one hospital vaginal birth, and 2 natural home / unassisted births. I classify them differently, as my hospital birth, although it was vaginal, and I didn't really have drugs - there was nothing natural about it. There was no faith in my body, in my baby, or in the process. It was a 'disaster waiting to happen'. I know, that what the medical staff did there put my baby at risk. They just followed procedure, rather than what evidence says is 'best practice'. I was uneducated, and they should have known better. They ended up giving me an episiotomy & then stitched me up too tight. 10 months after I'd given birth, whenever my hubby & I fooled around, it still hurt. Like I'd JUST given birth again. It wasn't fair of them to make me this way.

I went away & studied all I could. My next birth was AWESOME. AMAZING. TOTALLY JOY-FILLED. I'm sure there are not too many births that could be described that way. There was no interference at all. It was a total spiritual experience. He came quick, and I had him on the bathroom floor & my hubby caught. I got my prolapse when I was pregnant with this baby, and the birth didn't really seem to impact it. I did get a 2nd deg tear, but this healed soooo much quicker than my episiotomy - and, I think when it was sewn up, it was sewn up without the extra tightness. (Thank God)

My 3rd birth, was a home water birth with a midwife. It was interesting having a 'professional' there, as I no longer relied on my own judgements & body's promptings. I referred to her. So this birth did not go as great as the 2nd. It's interesting that even though I was in my own home, and I knew & liked my midwife, & this was my 3rd birth, I still felt intimidated enough to not fully follow my body. Imagine what a first time mum would be like in a sterile hospital :(

Hormones play such a massive role in birth, and I just wish that hospitals & drs respected them. Google Dr Sarah J Buckley and her work. It's quite amazing.

On a more positive note - I had heard that we are due for a birthing revolution! The last big one was to get men allowed into hospitals! Since then it's been pretty ordinary!

I so agree with Kalypso so much, when i look back at my first birth i think i had no chance, i remember the midwife who took over coming in and just saying lets get this underway and basically was like start pushing though i had no urges, i look back and think how do you know i was ready, no checks had been done internally to see how dilated i was, they then broke my waters without asking when i had started getting the urge to push and i had made it v clear i wanted everything natural. Also convinced me to have an episiotomy saying it was very simple and my babys heart beat was getting tired. When i look back i feel annoyed with myself as well as you listen to them and think its great they got your baby out but it wasnt natural how i wanted and it was rushed i think i pushed when i didnt need to and didnt listen to my body at all. Very sad how it has gone now, I would like to at least have a home birth next time but my partner is not so sure and i am worried with having bladder and bowel prolapse but i will be asking for help on this lovely site nearer the time of having another. On a positive note with posture more in place, alternative therapy on back issues and exercises i feel much better! Kalpyso would you say prolapse has got worse through births? I dont want to have a c section if i am blessed enough to have another x

Should I say, I knew nothing? Should any woman admit to that? A Catholic upbringing: my mother wanted the nuns to explain, (she phoned them expressly to this purpose) and the nuns wanted my mother to; so no-one did. So this left it all up to the gyno and the midwife and the nurses. I was ignorant, and they tried their best. But someone with a lot of knowledge talking to someone with none: What are the odds of real communication? The gap was filled with my trust. And as you would have read bad mirror just three days ago trying to explain to Ikam about pain management; it’s a true wake up.

There is nothing deliberate here. It is our own ignorance. Something we really must do something about and which Christine, a lone voice in the wilderness, has been trying to do something about for some time....

I wasn’t consulted about an episiotomy even at that late stage just prior to my last push, the midwife asked the gyno as he yielded the scalpel ‘why are you doing that, she (me) was just waiting for the next push and you slice with your knife?’ Well that’s an extra procedure, but yes I am trying to help. Oh really? Yes he guiltily thinks yes.

I still feel the phantom pain of that cut and stitching; 36 years later. The doctor was a likable chap. Even a money hungry so and so does not wish that on anyone. But I have never told my husband about it. Having babies is a big responsibility. I did not tell my Dr of my anger either, but I was angry. I hid my anger and probably let it out on some innocent family member. Today, I would confront my gyno for the sake of caution for those who come after, but then I know more now and am wiser and less caring of saving a doctor's feelings.

At the time of my first child although offered, I would never have planned a caesarean only seeing it as an emergency situation. I was afraid of operations, natural seemed best and so on and on, now that I am too old for it to apply, I wonder.

If you take a model of a skull of the typical baby, and the model of a typical female pelvic bone circumference and try to pass the skull through from the uterus over the pelvic bone and then down the birth canal you find that it cannot be done without force and without the baby’s ability to turn. Just absorb that for one minute.

This is only the case in humans. Explanations at this point of our scientists’ knowledge is that it all came apart when we learnt to walk upright and two legged.

I can but say to the new generation of women, test the waters, get the knowledge of the whole difficult process, ascertain the risks, don’t get locked up with the natural argument or the designed by god argument and then decide. And certainly don't think that having a caesarian is some type of personal failure.

Best wishes, Fab

There will always be exceptions to the rule: where C-section is the safest and smartest birth plan for both the immediate and future health of mother and possibly child.

I am sorry you went through this and that you suffer as a result. Hind sight just sucks. I have regrets over a few choices I have made and am working to forgive myself and realize I was not given all of the information necessary to make an intelligent choice. We do what we do with the information we have in front of us.

Spamelah, that is very true, but when the doctor or hospital staff don't put all the information in front of us we don't know what questions to ask.

We don't know how to spot a red flag when it is couched in specialist medical language, eg a routine procedure is not called routine because the doctor has done it so many times that he could do it with his eyes closed, and that it is risk free. It is called 'routine' because it is "a fixed pattern of procedures used in any phase of treatment". The word 'routine' does not say anything about risk, success rate, or later consequences for the patient. Think about that next time a doctor indicates the need for a routine procedure or test.

The patient who hears that she needs a routine procedure often thinks "Phew! I am glad they know what they are doing. I trust them. I am glad I am not having anything non-routine." She doesn't question whether or not there are other options, or the option of no treatment at all, because the doctor doesn't have any other treatments up his sleeve and the patient needs to look elsewhere to find other treatments. Or whether she needs to ask about potential risks or potential complications. We have women coming to these Forums quite often, who are experiencing symptoms that result from a pelvic repair procedure, who say, "if only I had known, I wouldn't have had the repair".

There are times when we are too ready to Trust. We owe it to ourselves to ensure that we understand what we are being told, either explicitly, or implicitly, about what is going to happen, or what may happen.

Your comment about forgiving oneself for making a wrong decision, or not doing something that would have given a better outcome, is so true. It is part of being gentle with ourselves.

I came across this the other day: http://www.childbirthconnection.org/pdfs/vaginalorcesareanbirth.pdf. It is a paper which attempts to analyse the available research on childbirth and categorize the risks. I thought it was very informative. Hopefully they will continue to update it as more research is published.

Pelvic organ Prolapse is about the only thing that report says a c-section is better for.
Well there you have it. Much higher chance of death, neuro probs, even allergies- but less chance of pop. oh well.

it certainly makes me wonder if women who have elective caesarians are thinking straight, even if there is a higher risk of POP.

Vaginal birth is not the only major factor in POP.