So what exactly is the problem with C-Sections?

[Anonymous]

There is nothing to support with C-section births except risks and some other interventions (delayed cord clamping, immediate skin to skin, nursing immediately, etc.) that are all provider dependent meaning you can want that and advocate for them but if they dont believe in them/dont agree then they arent happening. C-sections are also surgeries, there are x number of things to do, x number of things that usually go wrong with known interventions/ways to manage and there is a safety in that.

Vaginal births are 100% behind the literature because they involve a LOT of support that requires time and time is money in hospitals. A lot of it is also risk mitigation. Many providers have not been trained in delivering babies where the women is in non-lithotomy position and therefore, they wont deliver women in any other position. So even if you are successfully delivering on all fours theyll have you turn around. Laying on your back with your legs up actually decreases the spacing between your pelvic bones which is pretty counterintuitive. Labor is full of spectrums and possibilities.

Its funny because I went with midwives assuming they would have all these different positions/options and the midwife who attended my labor actually did something contraindicated (did not know that then) and this was the only thing she tried. No ball, no squat bar, no tugging back and forth with a scarf, no peanut ball, nothing. Conversely, I had multiple friends tell me their nurses or OB/GYNs suggested stuff like that for them. These experiences were in the same hospital mind you.

It is kind of a crapshoot going in your first time and by the second time you know better. You have better expectations, knowledge, and awareness about your limits and needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vaginal delivery plays an important role in developing a babies microbiome which we are still learning to understand the importance of. “The development of the microbiome begins in utero, however factors related to the labor and birth environment have been shown to influence the initial colonization process of the newborn microbiome. This “seeding” or transfer of microbes from the mother to newborn may serve as an early inoculation process with implications for the long-term health outcomes of newborns. Studies have shown that there are distinct differences in the microbiome profiles of newborns born vaginally compared to those born by cesarean.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5648605/

“Children born via cesarean compared to those born vaginally are more likely to develop immune-related disorders like asthma/allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, and obesity”.

For these reasons, I’m hoping to deliver vaginally. If there’s a medical reason preventing me from doing this, c-section is a great alternative available to modern women.

Saying c sections cause allergies/IBS/obesity is the 2020s version of the 1950s theory that autism was caused by mothers who didn’t love their kids enough.

+1000 But I feel like it's become a FTM rite of passage that you have to buy way too deeply into having the crunchiest birth possible, so that a couple of years later you can read posts like this and the lady who provided a bogus photo and feel second-hand embarrassment trying to remember what you posted when you were pregnant with your first.

Next stop: babies that aren't breastfed all turn out to be sickly and obese with ADHD.

[Anonymous]

I’ve had 4 c-sections and was just cleared for a fifth. Think I’m done though

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every single one of my Brazilian friends the last 30 years has had an elective c-section. There must be something to it.

(From a mom who has had 3 home-births. We have great debates!)

Women in Brazil are often pressured into unnecessary c-sections by their doctors. At private hospitals, the c-section rate is over 80%.

This is true, but I think pressure is less common in private hospitals (ie wealthy people who can afford to be there) and there is a huge cultural component among the UMC and elite who deliver there that giving birth naturally is a disgusting and unpredictable process that you shouldn't have to endure if you can pay not to. An elective c-section birth is more "civilized." You can have your house clean, your childcare booked, your hair and nails and makeup done, pick your playlist and decorate the hospital room, and plan a (pre-COVID) party with your family and friends. Private hospitals in Brazil (I lived there for 5 years) can be REALLY luxe. It's also multi-generational at this point and if you're in that sphere you probably don't know many others who are having vaginal births, a C is just what you do. Then there is the logic of the 1-6 outcomes which does make sense (1 is a gamble and if that's not you you're already at a 3+).

[Anonymous]

The micro biome stuff mattered to me when I was an expectant FTM. And then once labor pains got real and I felt what unmedicated birth actually felt like (and then was in active labor for over 24 hours), I was like, OMFG this is horrific. Why on earth would anyone WANT to feel this or say anything to another woman to make her think this was an experience she would want to feel fully? I mean I guess if feeling like you’re being strangled by a boa constrictor while you’re drowning is a feeling you want, go right ahead. All that micro biome stuff and Ina May nonsense meant very little to me in the throes of the actual labor pains and I felt quite duped and angry about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every single one of my Brazilian friends the last 30 years has had an elective c-section. There must be something to it.

(From a mom who has had 3 home-births. We have great debates!)

Women in Brazil are often pressured into unnecessary c-sections by their doctors. At private hospitals, the c-section rate is over 80%.

This is true, but I think pressure is less common in private hospitals (ie wealthy people who can afford to be there) and there is a huge cultural component among the UMC and elite who deliver there that giving birth naturally is a disgusting and unpredictable process that you shouldn't have to endure if you can pay not to. An elective c-section birth is more "civilized." You can have your house clean, your childcare booked, your hair and nails and makeup done, pick your playlist and decorate the hospital room, and plan a (pre-COVID) party with your family and friends. Private hospitals in Brazil (I lived there for 5 years) can be REALLY luxe. It's also multi-generational at this point and if you're in that sphere you probably don't know many others who are having vaginal births, a C is just what you do. Then there is the logic of the 1-6 outcomes which does make sense (1 is a gamble and if that's not you you're already at a 3+).

PP. Thank you for providing more context!

I'd love to have a magical, spiritual, unmedicated vaginal birth like some of my friends describe. But my chances at a VBAC aren't great (large babies, c-section due to stalled labor/baby's head getting stuck). So I don't know if it's worth trying if I'm probably going to fail.

[Anonymous]

My one vaginal birth baby is the one with the worst allergies (also breastfed over 2 years). My mom had 8 vaginally and most of us have horrific allergies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had two emergency c-sections. Either my kids or I would be dead without them, so I don't see any problem.

I mean, same…I would be dead or my first daughter would be dead without my first C-section, but I think it’s more than OK that I did, in fact, experience “problems” with post-surgery infection complications and subsequent rehospitalization/tough recovery. Do you get that most cancer patients are grateful to be alive, but many of them still “had a problem” with the difficulties of chemo or major surgery?

I don’t think pp was personally attacking you lady. Everyone has their perspective on this. Certainly c sections aren’t a walk in the park but once the 8 pound parasite has lodged itself in your stomachs the options for removal are all unpleasant.

NP. Equating all birth experiences as “unpleasant” is unproductive and diminishes the pain and suffering of women all over the world. I have had two friends with extremely harrowing emergency C-sections. In one case, it was a scenario that the hospital staff had trained for but had never actually had to perform in person. It had a specific code. In another case, a friend had a C-section and the baby was born dead, she passed out, and woke up not knowing that her baby had been brought back to life. She has PTSD about the experience to this day, and is in therapy to this day.

“Unpleasant” and “has PTSD with flashbacks requiring therapy” are different. I’m not going to sit here and act like we can just call all birth experiences “unpleasant” and call it a day. What a disservice to women and to the medical field.

I feel I must add the PTSD case was an extremely emergent C-section, so there was long labor, lots of pain, panic and fear going in that added to the PTSD. So it wasn’t just “a” C-section, it was an emergency that was very complicated.

That is terrible for your friend, but we're any of these issues caused by the C-section? I had a preemie/NICU baby who had to be re-hospitalized and it was all very traumatic but those issues weren't because of the C-section. It's generally the opposite -- pregnancy/baby issues are the reason for the C-section.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vaginal delivery plays an important role in developing a babies microbiome which we are still learning to understand the importance of. “The development of the microbiome begins in utero, however factors related to the labor and birth environment have been shown to influence the initial colonization process of the newborn microbiome. This “seeding” or transfer of microbes from the mother to newborn may serve as an early inoculation process with implications for the long-term health outcomes of newborns. Studies have shown that there are distinct differences in the microbiome profiles of newborns born vaginally compared to those born by cesarean.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5648605/

“Children born via cesarean compared to those born vaginally are more likely to develop immune-related disorders like asthma/allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, and obesity”.

For these reasons, I’m hoping to deliver vaginally. If there’s a medical reason preventing me from doing this, c-section is a great alternative available to modern women.

Saying c sections cause allergies/IBS/obesity is the 2020s version of the 1950s theory that autism was caused by mothers who didn’t love their kids enough.

+1000 But I feel like it's become a FTM rite of passage that you have to buy way too deeply into having the crunchiest birth possible, so that a couple of years later you can read posts like this and the lady who provided a bogus photo and feel second-hand embarrassment trying to remember what you posted when you were pregnant with your first.

Next stop: babies that aren't breastfed all turn out to be sickly and obese with ADHD.

Major eye-roll at all those studies that are just correlation, not causation. Yep a lot of pregnancies and babies with complicated issues result in C-sections. It's not surprising that these correlations exist.

I am the product of a C-section and had one myself, both for medical reasons, and very grateful for it.

[Anonymous]

We can only get pregnant via IVF. The combo of IVF pregnancy and multiple C section scars dramatically increases the chance of an ectopic c section pregnancy, which would mean terminating a wanted pregnancy or risking a uterine rupture and leaving my kids orphaned. When you go to deliver a c section scar pregnancy they have you bring your advanced directives because the chance of death is so high. High risk of hysterectomy. C sections also cause infertility and lower implantation rate of embryos, which matters a lot to a couple who can't try to make a new embryo every month the old fashioned way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s major surgery, and like any surgery, things can go awry. I got an infection following my first emergency C-section and had to be rehospitalized. The infection left me sick and weak and I honestly looked and felt like a corpse. I had to be separated from my baby for four days, she could visit me during visiting hours, and I did my best to breastfeed her. (She couldn’t stay with me because only patients can stay, and she wasn’t a patient as she was completely healthy.)

Fortunately, I recovered fully, and we were able to breastfeed. But it was horrible.

There’s also a lot of difficult things even without complications, like blood clots, difficulty walking, difficulty with bowels, etc. The scar can not properly heal, etc. You have to have a freaking catheter.

It’s not a cake walk, OP.

It can cause you problems decades in the future. They can open you up for a cancer surgery and find your belly full of adhesions, all your organs fused together, then you suddenly have a complicated multi hour long surgery in your 60s or 70s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my case, because the recovery from a c-section would have had to be virtually unmedicated (very bad reaction to most opioid painkillers) and almost entirely unassisted since I delivered during COVID and my spouse had a very short parental leave. So since I wasn’t going to have someone able to hand me the baby, take the baby after nursing, and all of the other challenges of c-section recovery, I really wanted to not have a c-section. My sisters recovery from both of her c-sections were terrible *but* she had my mother and a night nurse to help— two things that were not possible for me during pre-vaccine COVID.

This isn’t a reason c-sections are “bad” it is a reason I didn’t want one. I know people who had scheduled c-sections because their spouses were deploying and they wanted to know on what day baby was arriving— it doesn’t make vaginal birth bad it means they didn’t want one!

I got some kind of long term local anesthetic and orally only got ibuprofen/acetaminophen for my C section. Don't know what was in the local, maybe there was an opioid. How would they even do an epidural on you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We can only get pregnant via IVF. The combo of IVF pregnancy and multiple C section scars dramatically increases the chance of an ectopic c section pregnancy, which would mean terminating a wanted pregnancy or risking a uterine rupture and leaving my kids orphaned. When you go to deliver a c section scar pregnancy they have you bring your advanced directives because the chance of death is so high. High risk of hysterectomy. C sections also cause infertility and lower implantation rate of embryos, which matters a lot to a couple who can't try to make a new embryo every month the old fashioned way.

Huh? I had an IVF pregnancy and delivered via C-section. No one talked about advanced directives and chance of death for C-section #2. This seems very dramatic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Forceps birth for my first after a day of labor left me unable to control my poop for 6 months and with a boatload of scar tissue in my vagina from sidewall tears and a bladder and rectal prolapse that make emptying my rectum impossible so I have to use gloves or enemas on a daily basis now. The scheduled c section I had after that (which had several post op complications) Was so civilized and lovely compared to having a baby ripped out of me with BBQ tongs after purple pushing for hours. My c section scar is invisible now to the naked eye and was done in my pubic hairline. It looks nothing like the picture the PP posted and you cannot see it and there’s only a tiny band of scar tissue I can feel when I palpate the area. oP do the scheduled c section. I did and wish I had done it for my first.

That woman's scar might be sucked in because of adhesions (scar tissue), and you have no idea if your body makes those until it is too late.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Forceps birth for my first after a day of labor left me unable to control my poop for 6 months and with a boatload of scar tissue in my vagina from sidewall tears and a bladder and rectal prolapse that make emptying my rectum impossible so I have to use gloves or enemas on a daily basis now. The scheduled c section I had after that (which had several post op complications) Was so civilized and lovely compared to having a baby ripped out of me with BBQ tongs after purple pushing for hours. My c section scar is invisible now to the naked eye and was done in my pubic hairline. It looks nothing like the picture the PP posted and you cannot see it and there’s only a tiny band of scar tissue I can feel when I palpate the area. oP do the scheduled c section. I did and wish I had done it for my first.

That woman's scar might be sucked in because of adhesions (scar tissue), and you have no idea if your body makes those until it is too late.

DP. My body does make adhesions. I've had 3 endometriosis surgeries. There were no adhesions near my c section scar.