VBAC attempt experience

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My best friend tried a VBAC after a scheduled C section for a breech baby. She had some really fanciful notions about vaginal childbirth being some kind of empowering and beautiful experience she has missed out on and felt like she has failed in her first for having a section and was hell bent on trying for a vaginal birth. Some of her friends had had vaginal births tried to disavow her of these unrealistic expectations and to explain to her how painful and difficult the experience was but she wouldn’t hear it. She ended up having a long and painful labor and then a traumatic emergency C section which she said was far worse than the scheduled one. I think the only benefit she has now is that she can still run easily with no leaking or pelvic floor issues. But even after all that she still seems to think she missed out on something from not having a vaginal birth.

You don’t sound like you respect your “best friend” very much. Also the pelvic floor issues are usually caused by pregnancy, not birth, but feel free to continue being misinformed AND judgmental!

Actually research shows most pelvic floor problems are caused by vaginal birth, with forceps increasing the risk. Pregnancy can cause some but it is actually the process of birth which causes most damage. PP you are just wrong.

[Anonymous]

Obviously follow your Dr's guidance, but if your Dr thinks you have a decent chance of success than go for it! Another successful VBAC story here. Second baby just happened to be the right size, in the exact right position, no complications. Likelihood of success depends a lot on the reasons for the first C-Section, but if your medical team is supportive than don't be afraid to try! Obviously being in a hospital is a must.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Turns out that there is not a lot of hard data to inform decisions. From what I have found only 50% of attemps work and not much info on the the ones that worked led to issues for mom or baby, or if the ones that went to a c section after labor attempt had a higher chance of problems compared to scheduled second c sections. I could care less about which method to use from an experience perspective just want one that has the highest chance of better outcomes (and lower risk of really bad outcomes).

There have been multiple studies from European countries that showed around 70% of VBACs were successful with no worsening outcomes for moms or babies.

The way that VBAC is billed in the U.S. is that it is a disaster waiting to happen, so they give you even less time to labor and push than they would a FTM. It's not a recipe for success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Turns out that there is not a lot of hard data to inform decisions. From what I have found only 50% of attemps work and not much info on the the ones that worked led to issues for mom or baby, or if the ones that went to a c section after labor attempt had a higher chance of problems compared to scheduled second c sections. I could care less about which method to use from an experience perspective just want one that has the highest chance of better outcomes (and lower risk of really bad outcomes).

50%?! Lol, no.

"In fact, NICHD research shows that among appropriate candidates, about 75% of VBAC attempts are successful." - NIH

"Yet, it’s estimated that 60–80 percent of appropriate candidates who attempt VBAC will be successful." -ACOG

"Most published series examining women attempting TOLAC have demonstrated a vaginal delivery rate of 60–80%" - ACOG

ACOG also says uterine rupture is .5-.9%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Turns out that there is not a lot of hard data to inform decisions. From what I have found only 50% of attemps work and not much info on the the ones that worked led to issues for mom or baby, or if the ones that went to a c section after labor attempt had a higher chance of problems compared to scheduled second c sections. I could care less about which method to use from an experience perspective just want one that has the highest chance of better outcomes (and lower risk of really bad outcomes).

50%?! Lol, no.

"In fact, NICHD research shows that among appropriate candidates, about 75% of VBAC attempts are successful." - NIH

"Yet, it’s estimated that 60–80 percent of appropriate candidates who attempt VBAC will be successful." -ACOG

"Most published series examining women attempting TOLAC have demonstrated a vaginal delivery rate of 60–80%" - ACOG

ACOG also says uterine rupture is .5-.9%

In order of safety it's
1. VBAC
2. repeat C
3. failed VBAC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My best friend tried a VBAC after a scheduled C section for a breech baby. She had some really fanciful notions about vaginal childbirth being some kind of empowering and beautiful experience she has missed out on and felt like she has failed in her first for having a section and was hell bent on trying for a vaginal birth. Some of her friends had had vaginal births tried to disavow her of these unrealistic expectations and to explain to her how painful and difficult the experience was but she wouldn’t hear it. She ended up having a long and painful labor and then a traumatic emergency C section which she said was far worse than the scheduled one. I think the only benefit she has now is that she can still run easily with no leaking or pelvic floor issues. But even after all that she still seems to think she missed out on something from not having a vaginal birth.

Screw you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My best friend tried a VBAC after a scheduled C section for a breech baby. She had some really fanciful notions about vaginal childbirth being some kind of empowering and beautiful experience she has missed out on and felt like she has failed in her first for having a section and was hell bent on trying for a vaginal birth. Some of her friends had had vaginal births tried to disavow her of these unrealistic expectations and to explain to her how painful and difficult the experience was but she wouldn’t hear it. She ended up having a long and painful labor and then a traumatic emergency C section which she said was far worse than the scheduled one. I think the only benefit she has now is that she can still run easily with no leaking or pelvic floor issues. But even after all that she still seems to think she missed out on something from not having a vaginal birth.

Screw you.

Why? If mom and baby are healthy and no one died or was permanently injured, WTF does it matter if baby came out of your belly instead of your lady bits? Plenty of vaginal births are horrific and injurious but the VBAC community refuses to hear that.

[Anonymous]

First one c section vertical. Second and third vbac no issues and all and recovery great. Duke University Hospital head of the department was my doctor for the c-section, luckily he was not available for my second! Unfortunately he still practices in Chicago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My best friend tried a VBAC after a scheduled C section for a breech baby. She had some really fanciful notions about vaginal childbirth being some kind of empowering and beautiful experience she has missed out on and felt like she has failed in her first for having a section and was hell bent on trying for a vaginal birth. Some of her friends had had vaginal births tried to disavow her of these unrealistic expectations and to explain to her how painful and difficult the experience was but she wouldn’t hear it. She ended up having a long and painful labor and then a traumatic emergency C section which she said was far worse than the scheduled one. I think the only benefit she has now is that she can still run easily with no leaking or pelvic floor issues. But even after all that she still seems to think she missed out on something from not having a vaginal birth.

Screw you.

Why? If mom and baby are healthy and no one died or was permanently injured, WTF does it matter if baby came out of your belly instead of your lady bits? Plenty of vaginal births are horrific and injurious but the VBAC community refuses to hear that.

I think the issue is that people like you discount other people's preferences if you don't share them. Many woman want to experience labor and vaginal childbirth. People like you are always offended by and dismissive of the reasons they want to do that. My reason was that I believe that childbirth is an experience that is uniquely female and I wanted to experience what billions of women before me experienced. I did find that birth was an empowering and beautiful experience, which was obviously largely a function of both of my births going smoothly and everyone coming through them healthy and happy. I would certainly feel differently if that wasn't the case, but before my first baby was born (10 years ago), I would have felt disappointment at not having had that experience. I know that women like you like to discount the mother's experience of birth as selfish and trivial, but not everyone feels that way. I don't think that my desire to experience vaginal childbirth is selfish, particularly since I absolutely would not trade "experience vaginal childbirth" for the health of my child. My sister recently had an emergency c-section with her first baby, and she plans to try for a VBAC next time. I know that she feels like she missed out on the experience that I and our mother had in having babies vaginally, even though she also feels grateful that her baby was healthy.

There are also complications to c-sections which the "VBAC moms are selfish" community refuses to hear.

[Anonymous]

First one c section vertical. Second and third vbac no issues and all and recovery great. Duke University Hospital head of the department was my doctor for the c-section, luckily he was not available for my second! Unfortunately he still practices in Chicago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My best friend tried a VBAC after a scheduled C section for a breech baby. She had some really fanciful notions about vaginal childbirth being some kind of empowering and beautiful experience she has missed out on and felt like she has failed in her first for having a section and was hell bent on trying for a vaginal birth. Some of her friends had had vaginal births tried to disavow her of these unrealistic expectations and to explain to her how painful and difficult the experience was but she wouldn’t hear it. She ended up having a long and painful labor and then a traumatic emergency C section which she said was far worse than the scheduled one. I think the only benefit she has now is that she can still run easily with no leaking or pelvic floor issues. But even after all that she still seems to think she missed out on something from not having a vaginal birth.

Screw you.

Why? If mom and baby are healthy and no one died or was permanently injured, WTF does it matter if baby came out of your belly instead of your lady bits? Plenty of vaginal births are horrific and injurious but the VBAC community refuses to hear that.

I think the issue is that people like you discount other people's preferences if you don't share them. Many woman want to experience labor and vaginal childbirth. People like you are always offended by and dismissive of the reasons they want to do that. My reason was that I believe that childbirth is an experience that is uniquely female and I wanted to experience what billions of women before me experienced. I did find that birth was an empowering and beautiful experience, which was obviously largely a function of both of my births going smoothly and everyone coming through them healthy and happy. I would certainly feel differently if that wasn't the case, but before my first baby was born (10 years ago), I would have felt disappointment at not having had that experience. I know that women like you like to discount the mother's experience of birth as selfish and trivial, but not everyone feels that way. I don't think that my desire to experience vaginal childbirth is selfish, particularly since I absolutely would not trade "experience vaginal childbirth" for the health of my child. My sister recently had an emergency c-section with her first baby, and she plans to try for a VBAC next time. I know that she feels like she missed out on the experience that I and our mother had in having babies vaginally, even though she also feels grateful that her baby was healthy.

There are also complications to c-sections which the "VBAC moms are selfish" community refuses to hear.

So what about all the moms who think childbirth is going to be an amazing and beautiful experience and end up with horrible injuries like prolapse or 4th degree tears? And all the C section moms who only hear beautiful empowering stories of vaginal birth and then who feel like they missed out on something, not recognizing they may have dodged a massive bullet? The ever-present narrative around C sections being bad and vaginal births being empowering and amazing is reductive, binary, and inaccurate. It makes anyone who didn’t have the perfect vaginal birth feel like total sh*t and people like you who got lucky yet don’t realize it intolerably arrogant.

[Anonymous]

Best thing to do. Listen to your doctor. It is a personal choice. Having a healthy baby and mom are the point. Neither is better for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My best friend tried a VBAC after a scheduled C section for a breech baby. She had some really fanciful notions about vaginal childbirth being some kind of empowering and beautiful experience she has missed out on and felt like she has failed in her first for having a section and was hell bent on trying for a vaginal birth. Some of her friends had had vaginal births tried to disavow her of these unrealistic expectations and to explain to her how painful and difficult the experience was but she wouldn’t hear it. She ended up having a long and painful labor and then a traumatic emergency C section which she said was far worse than the scheduled one. I think the only benefit she has now is that she can still run easily with no leaking or pelvic floor issues. But even after all that she still seems to think she missed out on something from not having a vaginal birth.

Screw you.

Why? If mom and baby are healthy and no one died or was permanently injured, WTF does it matter if baby came out of your belly instead of your lady bits? Plenty of vaginal births are horrific and injurious but the VBAC community refuses to hear that.

Are you really this uninformed? I knew even before I was ever pregnant that these kinds of thoughts and feelings are common to the C-section experience!

Let me drop this little fact on you: Feelings of loss, missing out, doing something wrong, failing, and not fulfilling "your job as a woman" ARE SO COMMON AND UNIVERSAL POST-C-SECTION THAT IT IS LITERALLY PART OF THE VIDEO THEY MAKE YOU WATCH WHEN YOU LEAVE THE HOSPITAL. It is literally part of any book about C-sections or birth experience. It's a totally normal, common, natural, nearly universal experience that doctors and scientists study it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My best friend tried a VBAC after a scheduled C section for a breech baby. She had some really fanciful notions about vaginal childbirth being some kind of empowering and beautiful experience she has missed out on and felt like she has failed in her first for having a section and was hell bent on trying for a vaginal birth. Some of her friends had had vaginal births tried to disavow her of these unrealistic expectations and to explain to her how painful and difficult the experience was but she wouldn’t hear it. She ended up having a long and painful labor and then a traumatic emergency C section which she said was far worse than the scheduled one. I think the only benefit she has now is that she can still run easily with no leaking or pelvic floor issues. But even after all that she still seems to think she missed out on something from not having a vaginal birth.

You don’t sound like you respect your “best friend” very much. Also the pelvic floor issues are usually caused by pregnancy, not birth, but feel free to continue being misinformed AND judgmental!

Actually research shows most pelvic floor problems are caused by vaginal birth, with forceps increasing the risk. Pregnancy can cause some but it is actually the process of birth which causes most damage. PP you are just wrong.

DP, but the pelvic floor PT I saw said that pregnancy causes much of the damage, and vaginal birth only increases the risk if it's instrumental (forceps or vacuum) or with 3rd/4th degree tear. So, sure, it can increase risk, but it's not as unequivocal as many people claim.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tried it. It didn’t work. After hours of labor I had a small uterine rupture/window but the end result was baby and I were both Ok even though it was scary. I think people who try at home are crazy.
I actually don’t regret trying. So many people told me how amazing Labor was and how I needed to experience it. Got that out of my system. No thanks! Went on to have four more c sections.

I'm sorry but you've had 6 c sections?