If your birth(s) happened 150 years ago,

[Anonymous]

Would you be alive?

[Anonymous]

Not sure if you mean my birth or my kids' births, but in either case, no.

I think you are referring to responders' kids' births bc of your (s) in the subject line

[Anonymous]

I’m pretty sure I would. I pushed for one set of three for about 5 minutes for both deliveries. One was three days late, the other was born on the due date.

My grandma always said our family has good birthing hips.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would you be alive?

No one who was born 150 years ago is still alive.

[Anonymous]

I would, but my first kid would not be.

[Anonymous]

I would have been better off without the C-section complications, but there is a decent chance my first would have died of sepsis (group B strep and premature rupture of membranes). He was born with an apgar score of 3 but that may have been due to the pitocin. Who knows.

[Anonymous]

Probably not after my second- I had a retained placenta that requires a d&c and I had a small hemorrhage in the OR.

Though I probably would also not have been alive long enough to get pregnant to begin with for other reasons, like how did people get past strep throat, UTI etc back then?

[Anonymous]

There’s a good chance me and/or my first would not have made it. I developed preeclampsia at 37 weeks, was induced, and ultimately had a c-section. I think without meds the high blood pressure would have caused me to have a seizure.

My second was a VBAC, straightforward birth. If I survived my first, the second would have been fine.

[Anonymous]

No. I hemorrhaged and would have died then.

[Anonymous]

Idk, but it was a really powerful moment in the birthing process when i realized that every single woman who came before me in my matrilineal line had to go through this experience, without the benefit of antibiotics, epidurals, or safe c-sections.

[Anonymous]

My first was over 11 lbs, so there’s a decent chance I would have had a very hard time and perhaps not have survived the experience. I had a scheduled c-section and was grateful it was available to me.

[Anonymous]

I would but my baby might not be. But also I only had one pregnancy at 36 and 37 and if I lived 150 years ago odds are very good I would have had more pregnancies starting younger whether I wanted to or not and who knows what would have happened. Like 150 years ago rape was legal and birth control didn't exist and abortion was a back alley deal that was super dangerous and giving birth was mysterious and often deadly. So like it's pretty hard to say exactly what my reproductive experience would have been except to say that it woud have been very different and I would have had a lot less agency.

One thing I do wonder about though is what PPD was like back then and how it was even conceptualized as I had a horrible experience with PPD. But one of the things I discussed with my therapist was how it was hard sometimes to know how much of my PPD was a just inevitable hormonal imbalance and how much was living in a world and having a life that simply did not accommodate the natural hormonal swings of pregnancy and childbirth. Like it didn't make me long for a simpler time because of all the aforementioned rape and lack of reproductive agency but also there was pretty obviously a link for me between being expected to give birth and then return to work and life as though it had not happened and the mental health problems I had that first year. I wonder how that experience would have been different in an earlier time. On the one hand I would have been written off as a crazy hysterical woman but on the other hand this might have been considere a more "normal" response to childbirth. Perhaps. I don't actually know.

It's an interesting thought experiment for sure.

[Anonymous]

No. My micropreemie firstborn would have died. I'd have died the second time from massive blood loss. My daughter would have survived, but would probably have died well before her time, because she was diagnosed with lupus as a young teen.

It's only with the miracles of modern medicine that we're all alive.

[Anonymous]

I’m O negative. My first child would probably have been fine, since my body wouldn’t have encountered positive blood before then, so wouldn’t have “fought” it.

My second was also positive, so there could have been serious issues and he could have been born as a “blue baby” and possibly not survived.

My third has negative blood, so there would have been no problems for him.

I am extremely thankful for Rhogam, which was created in 1968, not that long ago in the big scheme of things.

[Anonymous]

I had placenta previa with my second, we both would have died.