C-section or natural after 3rd degree tear?

[Anonymous]

Read this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Choosing-Cesarean-Natural-Birth-Plan/dp/1616145110

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Whenever I see these posts about how easy the recovery is from a scheduled Csection, I feel the need to chime in and just say that you can't count on that. My csection was planned well in advance (breach baby), I had an otherwise healthy and uneventful pregnancy. I was not AMA, I was fit, with really strong core, did the yoga, etc. The surgery went well, and my baby was healthy, and I even got a lot of compliments on my scar (as if I had anything to do with it, but I still liked hearing them). I left the hospital a day early even.

BUT, you will be unable move properly for weeks. You will not be able to pace the floor with your new born like you need/want to. It will be months later, and you will still feel weak in your abs, and will not be able to get up off the floor. This is a very serious surgery, and it will take months to recover. And last time, I didn't even have a toddler. Look, I haven't ever recovered from a 3rd degree tear, but I don't know any mom who did a vaginal birth who was physically recovering as long as I was. I just don't want this thread to give anyone an overly rosy view of csection recovery!

Hi, I am a mom who is still physically recovering from a traumatic vaginal delivery-- so know you know someone. I could not sit down comfortably for months and brought my hospital donut everywhere. I could hardly walk for weeks. I Couldn't have sex without pain for over a year and I spent 6 months in pelvic floor PT because of nerve damage and pain. Nothing is rosy about childbirth, but my 3 friends who had uncomplicated scheduled Caesareans all were back to exercising well before I could even walk without discomfort. I know people will say that my experience is an outlier but the more I talk to women the more I realize how common these issues are in the post partum period. They just are not talked about. All recoveries suck, and some are harder than others.

Sorry--I shouldn't have compared the two--and I don't mean to imply that recovering vaginal child birth is anything rosy at all! Just the vibe I got from some PPs (maybe this was their experience--if so I'm jealous--or maybe the details just faded into the memory hole that is the postpartum months) was that the recovery from a cs is no big deal. I just wanted to clarify that this is not the case. And my experience is not an outlier--this is what it is to recover from having your abs cut open and a baby yanked through them.

I'm one of the PPs who had a very easy scheduled C recovery. I was pacing the floor with my newborn within a week of birth, exercising regularly within weeks of birth. It really was no big deal. I had a worse recovery when I had my gallbladder out. I'm not idealizing my experience. It was just easy.

But I think your larger point is a good one. Nobody really can predict these things on an individual level. You could have an easy experience (vaginal or C). Or you could not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys realize CS have serious risks to them? Not just now but in the future? Recovering from a bad tear isn't easy but how do you think they get the baby out in a CS? They cut open your abdomen and uterus. That's a much bigger and more serious wound.

I'm a midwife and I see women who've had serious tears not even need repairing the second time. I'd choose a vaginal birth and ask that my provider do good perineal support and let me lead pushing rather than direct it themselves.

Just about everyone recovers from a C-section, especially a scheduled C-section after a routine pregnancy, without incident. I've had a third-degree tear, and I've had a C-section, and I'd choose the latter again in a heartbeat.

There's no gold medal for vaginal birth, OP. Despite what midwives might claim.

This is nonsense. First off, more women die, almost die, and have major complications from c-sections than they do from vaginal birth (in this country, not in less developed areas where the c-section rates are still too low). So yeah if the surgery goes well, super, you've saved your pelvic floor (I guess, although many women with c-sections still have painful sex and incontinence because of pregnancy and hormonal changes). And if you only need one, the first c-section is usually simple and straightforward. They get more and more dangerous the more of them you have. For you and your baby.

I could post data and stats but this makes a much better case I think.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/06/05/im-an-ob-gyn-i-dont-think-most-babies-should-be-born-in-the-hopsital

Let's talk PP because you clearly have an agenda to push and you're not doing it very well. So let's strip away the dogma and ideology and focus on facts. First of all, there is a HUGE difference in risks, mortality rate, etc. between an EMERGENCY Cesarean and a SCHEDULED one. And the reality is that the risks are significantly lower for a scheduled Cesarean. The natural birth community won't acknowledge this. In fact, they love to scare women about the risks of Cesarean while not acknowledging at all that there are any risks to a vaginal delivery. See below.

."..Most studies looking at the risks of cesarean section may have been biased, as women with medical or obstetric problems were more likely to have been selected for an elective cesarean section. Thus, the occurrence of poor maternal or neonatal outcomes may have been due to the problem necessitating the cesarean delivery rather than to the procedure itself. The only way to avoid this selection bias is to conduct a trial in which women would be randomly assigned to undergo a planned cesarean section or a planned vaginal birth. When this was done in the international randomized Term Breech Trial involving 2088 women with a singleton fetus in breech presentation at term, the risk of perinatal or neonatal death or of serious neonatal morbidity was significantly lower in the planned cesarean group, with no significant increase in the risk of maternal death or serious maternal morbidity.1

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC343856/


And thanks for your awesome WaPo story, but if you were following maternal health news in the UK more closely you would know that they had ended their Campaign for Normal birth, that women in the UK are sustaining record levels of injury because of increased use of forceps and vacuum and pressure to delivery vaginally above all else, and they have launched a Birth Trauma Association because so many women are dealing with life-long physical injuries and emotional trauma from their deliveries.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/12/midwives-to-stop-using-term-normal-birth
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27131590

You would also know that the new guidelines published by ACOG and Soc. for Maternal-Fetal Medicine that promote a permissive approach to managing second stage labor and longer pushing rates fly in the fact of 50 years of obstetric practice. Furthermore, there is a growing number of OBs saying--to their own colleagues in the journal of ACOG--that these guidelines are not supported by robust evidence and warning that our country is going to start seeing far more maternal injuries in our dogmatic pursuit of reducing the Cesarean rate while ignoring all other outcomes, such as perineal lacerations, hemorrhage, maternal mortality, infection, somatic trauma, infant cephelahematoma, etc. which are all important outcomes. Not to mention the long term costs to our health care system and to women who have had traumatic births and now are dealing with emotional trauma, prolapse, incontinence, etc. and then have subsequent surgeries, sometimes years or decades alter, with high failure rates, and then have to deal with things like mesh complications, etc.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27131590
http://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378(15)02231-0/fulltext

All of this is not to say that Cesarean delivery is not without risk, as it certainly is. But you need to stop with this "natural birth" dogma and ideology, Cesarean fear mongering, and medical paternalism. Women need to have all the information they deserve without bias so they can make the best decisions for themselves and their families and supported no matter what decision they make and whatever outcome they have.

PP, you are a rock star. I can't +1 this enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God, who is this person who also knows about Handa and Dietz!!! Wonderful!!! When I had my child in 2014, I was so badly mangled and I felt like the only person, in the subsequent months of trying to put myself back together, who knew who they were. Thank you for highlighting their work. To the adamant vaginal birth person who has posted previously: You can sing your song after you have walked in my shoes. I cannot hold gas, or soft stools. Constipation pushes my rectum into my vagina. Evacuation has to happen edigitally because all the hard stool goes to where my levator ani used to be, and guess what, there is no anus there. My sexual enjoyment - what's that? I am a giant hole with three prolapsed organs (uterus, bladder and rectum) hanging in it, and no levator on my right side to contract for any sort of pleasure. Did I forget to tell you about my intussception? I really notice that when I am constipated, because when I can finally evacuate the stool, part of my colon emerges from my body. Thankfully it goes back in. But I dont know if it will when I have menopause someday. And did I mention my nerve damage (again, sexual enjoyment), enterocele and general daily pelvic pain? Or what it was like to not be able to life anything over ten pounds after my son, or how it feels inside when I have to tell him i cant carry him or pick him up? FWIW, arguably the most prominent midwife practicing in the district was in the room when I delivered. So, fuck your sanctimony. You try being me first. For the rest of your fucking life.

Holy shit. What a nightmare for you pp! What happened during your vaginal birth? I've never heard anyone have any of those problems you mentioned. I'm so sorry for you.

I'm not PP, but I'm not surprised you haven't heard. Women are shamed into not talking about their problems with vaginal birth. By contrast, C-sections are expected to be hard so it's easy to talk about C-section complications.

PP isn't alone or unusual, unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God, who is this person who also knows about Handa and Dietz!!! Wonderful!!! When I had my child in 2014, I was so badly mangled and I felt like the only person, in the subsequent months of trying to put myself back together, who knew who they were. Thank you for highlighting their work. To the adamant vaginal birth person who has posted previously: You can sing your song after you have walked in my shoes. I cannot hold gas, or soft stools. Constipation pushes my rectum into my vagina. Evacuation has to happen edigitally because all the hard stool goes to where my levator ani used to be, and guess what, there is no anus there. My sexual enjoyment - what's that? I am a giant hole with three prolapsed organs (uterus, bladder and rectum) hanging in it, and no levator on my right side to contract for any sort of pleasure. Did I forget to tell you about my intussception? I really notice that when I am constipated, because when I can finally evacuate the stool, part of my colon emerges from my body. Thankfully it goes back in. But I dont know if it will when I have menopause someday. And did I mention my nerve damage (again, sexual enjoyment), enterocele and general daily pelvic pain? Or what it was like to not be able to life anything over ten pounds after my son, or how it feels inside when I have to tell him i cant carry him or pick him up? FWIW, arguably the most prominent midwife practicing in the district was in the room when I delivered. So, fuck your sanctimony. You try being me first. For the rest of your fucking life.

Holy shit. What a nightmare for you pp! What happened during your vaginal birth? I've never heard anyone have any of those problems you mentioned. I'm so sorry for you.

I'm not PP, but I'm not surprised you haven't heard. Women are shamed into not talking about their problems with vaginal birth. By contrast, C-sections are expected to be hard so it's easy to talk about C-section complications.

PP isn't alone or unusual, unfortunately.

PP is not alone, but she is unusual, actually. Just as the horror stories and death from c-section are unusual. The majority of women, regardless of birthing method, give birth without incident. I am very sorry for PP and her experience, but you have to recognize that her case is extreme and unusual.

[Anonymous]

I am pp. Don't you dare dismiss me as some sort of marginal instance. Who do you think you are? Look st the research. Levator avulsion affects between 10 and 33 percent of women. Calling me a one off isn't an srguement. 50% of postmenopausal women have prolapse - most due to vaginsl birth complications that catch up to them when muscle tone starts to go and hormone levels change

OP Has the right to

Be fully informed if the risks to her body of both options

In a perfect world, as a pp said, to be screened thoughtfully for vaginal delivery complications and have this discussion with her provider so as to factor it into her birth plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d go for vaginal. I had a vaginal the first time with episiotomy and scheduled c the second time. C section recovery was hard (and I had a preemie so I wasn’t even taking care of a baby during the first part of recovery)

What was your first recovery like though?

Easier (that was the implication). The only thing that was tougher about it was sex felt weird for longer. But I’d choose that again over being in a ton of pain for a week (especially if I knew I had a baby going home w me and possibly other kids at home)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God, who is this person who also knows about Handa and Dietz!!! Wonderful!!! When I had my child in 2014, I was so badly mangled and I felt like the only person, in the subsequent months of trying to put myself back together, who knew who they were. Thank you for highlighting their work. To the adamant vaginal birth person who has posted previously: You can sing your song after you have walked in my shoes. I cannot hold gas, or soft stools. Constipation pushes my rectum into my vagina. Evacuation has to happen edigitally because all the hard stool goes to where my levator ani used to be, and guess what, there is no anus there. My sexual enjoyment - what's that? I am a giant hole with three prolapsed organs (uterus, bladder and rectum) hanging in it, and no levator on my right side to contract for any sort of pleasure. Did I forget to tell you about my intussception? I really notice that when I am constipated, because when I can finally evacuate the stool, part of my colon emerges from my body. Thankfully it goes back in. But I dont know if it will when I have menopause someday. And did I mention my nerve damage (again, sexual enjoyment), enterocele and general daily pelvic pain? Or what it was like to not be able to life anything over ten pounds after my son, or how it feels inside when I have to tell him i cant carry him or pick him up? FWIW, arguably the most prominent midwife practicing in the district was in the room when I delivered. So, fuck your sanctimony. You try being me first. For the rest of your fucking life.

Holy shit. What a nightmare for you pp! What happened during your vaginal birth? I've never heard anyone have any of those problems you mentioned. I'm so sorry for you.

I'm not PP, but I'm not surprised you haven't heard. Women are shamed into not talking about their problems with vaginal birth. By contrast, C-sections are expected to be hard so it's easy to talk about C-section complications.

PP isn't alone or unusual, unfortunately.

PP is not alone, but she is unusual, actually. Just as the horror stories and death from c-section are unusual. The majority of women, regardless of birthing method, give birth without incident. I am very sorry for PP and her experience, but you have to recognize that her case is extreme and unusual.

I have heard you make this statement before on other threads, PP, and frankly I find you to be callous, rude, and insensitive. First of all, please cite evidence stating that most women give birth without incident. You can't just make blanket statements based on dogma and ideology from the natural birth movement and not back them up with facts. So if you're going to make a gross, blanket statement about "most women" and their experiences, back it up with something. Where's the research? Show some citations.

Frankly, I find your lack of compassion to be unusual and extreme. Did you know that an estimated 25 percent of women have one or more symptoms of postpartum PTSD and around 9 percent of women have full blown postpartum PTSD. This is just emotional trauma, not even talking about physical. Would you deny that these women exist? Would you tell them that they are "unusual?"

Also, how dare you dismiss someone's suffering and traumatic experience? Are those really appropriate words to use for someone whose quality of life has been destroyed? How dare you try to invalidate someone's experience by marginalizing them as an outsider, when the reality is that millions of untold women around the world deal with these issues? There is so much stigma around them that most women are loathe to speak out, and when they do get the courage they must face trolls like you who are going around promoting natural birth agendas and ostracizing anyone whose story does not fit the narrative you are promoting.

I find you to be extremely anti-woman, and I hope that you are not in any position to be around, caring for, or supporting pregnant or post-partum women. You have no right to invalidate someone else's experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d go for vaginal. I had a vaginal the first time with episiotomy and scheduled c the second time. C section recovery was hard (and I had a preemie so I wasn’t even taking care of a baby during the first part of recovery)

What was your first recovery like though?

Easier (that was the implication). The only thing that was tougher about it was sex felt weird for longer. But I’d choose that again over being in a ton of pain for a week (especially if I knew I had a baby going home w me and possibly other kids at home)

Easier how? I'm trying to decide between the two and my vaginal recovery was BAD. I was bedridden for a week and not right for over a month. Trying to see how much better or worse a planned c section would be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Easier (that was the implication). The only thing that was tougher about it was sex felt weird for longer. But I’d choose that again over being in a ton of pain for a week (especially if I knew I had a baby going home w me and possibly other kids at home)

Easier how? I'm trying to decide between the two and my vaginal recovery was BAD. I was bedridden for a week and not right for over a month. Trying to see how much better or worse a planned c section would be.

NP: I think this is a great thread even if it is getting off topic at times. I hear what you are asking PP but I’m not sure if it is a matter of easier or what our overall expectation of recovery should be. When our grandmothers gave birth, if they did it in a hospital in America, they stayed in bed and were waited in hand and foot for at least 5 Days. (Mine are still alive, in their 90s and delivered in NY in the 1940s). When my mother gave birth to me, she had 4 nights of recovery at the hospital for her uncomplicated vaginal birth. This is unheard of in this day and age. Yes we are all on a continuum of how quickly we will feel ready to get up and at ‘em, but I think there are so many variables prenataly, birth and postpartum about the care we receive and our particular bodies to donanythibg but listen to other people’s experiences and choose what feels best for us.

Other cultures around the world practice 10-30 days of rest and warm foods and others taking care of the recovering woman. I know that was not my joy to experience in my post partum period, and I really believed by day 3 i’d Be just me, but with a baby in tow...I had a second degree tear, and it was at least two weeks before I felt I could sit and walk “normally”. AND I lived in a row house that meant two flights of stairs constantly. Kitchen on the first floor, Livingroom on the second and bedrooms on the top...it was awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys realize CS have serious risks to them? Not just now but in the future? Recovering from a bad tear isn't easy but how do you think they get the baby out in a CS? They cut open your abdomen and uterus. That's a much bigger and more serious wound.

I'm a midwife and I see women who've had serious tears not even need repairing the second time. I'd choose a vaginal birth and ask that my provider do good perineal support and let me lead pushing rather than direct it themselves.

Just about everyone recovers from a C-section, especially a scheduled C-section after a routine pregnancy, without incident. I've had a third-degree tear, and I've had a C-section, and I'd choose the latter again in a heartbeat.

There's no gold medal for vaginal birth, OP. Despite what midwives might claim.

This is nonsense. First off, more women die, almost die, and have major complications from c-sections than they do from vaginal birth (in this country, not in less developed areas where the c-section rates are still too low). So yeah if the surgery goes well, super, you've saved your pelvic floor (I guess, although many women with c-sections still have painful sex and incontinence because of pregnancy and hormonal changes). And if you only need one, the first c-section is usually simple and straightforward. They get more and more dangerous the more of them you have. For you and your baby.

I could post data and stats but this makes a much better case I think.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/06/05/im-an-ob-gyn-i-dont-think-most-babies-should-be-born-in-the-hopsital

Let's talk PP because you clearly have an agenda to push and you're not doing it very well.
[...]
All of this is not to say that Cesarean delivery is not without risk, as it certainly is. But you need to stop with this "natural birth" dogma and ideology, Cesarean fear mongering, and medical paternalism. Women need to have all the information they deserve without bias so they can make the best decisions for themselves and their families and supported no matter what decision they make and whatever outcome they have.

PP really wasn't pushing an agenda. I'm done childbearing (I just hang out here sometimes for fun) and had section and two vaginal births. C-section is more dangerous in terms of maternal health and life, it just is. There's no sense in denying it.

That doesn't mean OP shouldn't choose it, especially a planned one. I bid you peace and good luck, OP.

Correct (this is the PP you were referring to). Not pushing an agenda, just underscoring what many don't fully understand, among other things that the c-section you have NOW, regardless of your recovery, carries potentially serious implications for each and every pregnancy down the line. Look up the placenta accreta and miscarriage/stillbirth stats and you will see what I mean.

That said, I never said nor do I believe that surgical birth can't be a valid choice. In fact I agree women are very lucky today to have surgery+antibiotics available that make it relatively safe (i.e. not the death sentence it was 100 years ago).

I'm not fear-mongering with this stuff. If you choose c-section that's great. Just don't go into it blind. Make sure your OB has a lot of experience and performs them regularly. I've read a study that showed much better outcomes when the surgeon performs at least 3 or 4 a month. Make sure your hospital has an adequate blood bank. Those are measures you can take as a consumer to protect and advocate for yourself.

This thread makes very clear that women are not universally given realistic information about the risks of any mode of delivery, as people seem to be completely oblivious about the above not to mention the prevalence of severe tears and what I very openly admit I myself (someone who reads a lot of the research) did not fully realize was such a widespread problem with forceps use (thank you to the PP who posted the YouTube video; if I ever give birth again I'm writing a birth plan for the explicit purpose of including the phrase "No forceps under any circumstances"). That particular message needs to be right up there with the noise on episiotomies. Frankly I'm disturbed that providers are doing so much damage without any repercussion. But that is probably a topic for another thread.

[Anonymous]

This Australian midwifery journal paper on perineal trauma (i.e. 3rd and 4th degree tears) has a great literature review and stats:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4730/29cfe3104df3ce7ca7db853dbbb909927f38.pdf

A couple of interesting nuggets:

-Upright birth positions reduce instrumental vaginal birth (22%) and episiotomy (21%)

-Women born in countries such as India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, China, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Philippines and South Korea have high rates of SPT and more research is needed into why this is and how this can be reduced.

-The cascade of intervention in hospital (induction of labour, epidural use, instrumental birth, episiotomy) as a probable cause of higher rates of SPT is often not considered in the obstetric discourse around this issue.

[Anonymous]

If you engage in the various forums that support women who have experienced traumatic birth, you will find many who pursued all natural births with no interventions. You will find others who were subject to forceps, episiotomy, ventouse, etc. The argument that interventions lead you to ruin is one I have repeatedly heard from midwives. My point in earlier posts is simple - natural childbirth is not by any means risk free to the mother, particularly when we consider her long-term well being.

One other thing I wanted to address - a PP read my story and said something to the effect of "I've never heard of this happening!" Most women who have traumatic births also feel that way. And then suddenly, stories come out of the woodwork. if you ever had a miscarriage, it felt very similar. There are things that even in this day and age people don't want to discuss. And the damage from childbirth that women have isn't just a missing muscle or a scar, it directly impacts our sexuality, our identity, our continence, our ability to do basic things.

Here is some information on trauma - a new book on Childbirth Trauma not only gives you lots of information, but for those of us who are injured, the names of new emerging leaders in the field

https://books.google.com/books?id=2qTCDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA216&lpg=PA216&dq=levator+avulsion+studies&source=bl&ots=hluhlCXYda&sig=xL5bACkGsbHZcA6sfujReDM5_Fo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjE-8frmbLXAhXEbiYKHQWdDbgQ6AEIYTAJ#v=onepage&q=levator%20avulsion%20studies&f=false

The webpage of Dr. Dietz in Sydney who has a team of wonderful people working with him
http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/nepean/research/obstetrics/pelvic-floor-assessment/Pelvic_Floor_Assessment/About_Me.html

Case study - a woman who has difficulty evacuating because of her injuries -- and because nobody has acknowledged them for 13 years - written by a PT
http://suecroftphysiotherapist.com.au/media-articles/publications/complex-bowel-issues/#.WgSrA__ty9I

Not a study, but a good description, also references the work of Dietz and John De Lancey in this area, written by same PT
https://suecroftphysiotherapistblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/levator-avulsion-simply-explained/

A one-woman crusade to bring awareness to prolapse.
http://www.pelvicorganprolapsesupport.org/sherrie-palm/

And lastly, you will find in old medical books that google had digitized tons of info about avulsion from medical texts dating from the 1880s through about 1920. Then it disappears.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God, who is this person who also knows about Handa and Dietz!!! Wonderful!!! When I had my child in 2014, I was so badly mangled and I felt like the only person, in the subsequent months of trying to put myself back together, who knew who they were. Thank you for highlighting their work. To the adamant vaginal birth person who has posted previously: You can sing your song after you have walked in my shoes. I cannot hold gas, or soft stools. Constipation pushes my rectum into my vagina. Evacuation has to happen edigitally because all the hard stool goes to where my levator ani used to be, and guess what, there is no anus there. My sexual enjoyment - what's that? I am a giant hole with three prolapsed organs (uterus, bladder and rectum) hanging in it, and no levator on my right side to contract for any sort of pleasure. Did I forget to tell you about my intussception? I really notice that when I am constipated, because when I can finally evacuate the stool, part of my colon emerges from my body. Thankfully it goes back in. But I dont know if it will when I have menopause someday. And did I mention my nerve damage (again, sexual enjoyment), enterocele and general daily pelvic pain? Or what it was like to not be able to life anything over ten pounds after my son, or how it feels inside when I have to tell him i cant carry him or pick him up? FWIW, arguably the most prominent midwife practicing in the district was in the room when I delivered. So, fuck your sanctimony. You try being me first. For the rest of your fucking life.

Holy shit. What a nightmare for you pp! What happened during your vaginal birth? I've never heard anyone have any of those problems you mentioned. I'm so sorry for you.

I'm not PP, but I'm not surprised you haven't heard. Women are shamed into not talking about their problems with vaginal birth. By contrast, C-sections are expected to be hard so it's easy to talk about C-section complications.

PP isn't alone or unusual, unfortunately.

PP is not alone, but she is unusual, actually. Just as the horror stories and death from c-section are unusual. The majority of women, regardless of birthing method, give birth without incident. I am very sorry for PP and her experience, but you have to recognize that her case is extreme and unusual.

I have heard you make this statement before on other threads, PP, and frankly I find you to be callous, rude, and insensitive. First of all, please cite evidence stating that most women give birth without incident. You can't just make blanket statements based on dogma and ideology from the natural birth movement and not back them up with facts. So if you're going to make a gross, blanket statement about "most women" and their experiences, back it up with something. Where's the research? Show some citations.

Frankly, I find your lack of compassion to be unusual and extreme. Did you know that an estimated 25 percent of women have one or more symptoms of postpartum PTSD and around 9 percent of women have full blown postpartum PTSD. This is just emotional trauma, not even talking about physical. Would you deny that these women exist? Would you tell them that they are "unusual?"

Also, how dare you dismiss someone's suffering and traumatic experience? Are those really appropriate words to use for someone whose quality of life has been destroyed? How dare you try to invalidate someone's experience by marginalizing them as an outsider, when the reality is that millions of untold women around the world deal with these issues? There is so much stigma around them that most women are loathe to speak out, and when they do get the courage they must face trolls like you who are going around promoting natural birth agendas and ostracizing anyone whose story does not fit the narrative you are promoting.

I find you to be extremely anti-woman, and I hope that you are not in any position to be around, caring for, or supporting pregnant or post-partum women. You have no right to invalidate someone else's experience.

NP. If you're going to ask other posters to provide cites for their statements, you should do the same for yours. Obviously this is anecdotal, but I have 19 friends who had babies in the past two years, and zero of them had PTSD or any ongoing physical issues (probably around 2/3 were vaginal and 1/3 c-section). All were in their 30s. I find your 25% figure difficult to believe. And pointing out that someone's experience was not the norm does not invalidate it in any way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. A few more facts: I will have at most three kids, so this is either my last or second to last pregnancy. My recovery from my first birth/tear was fast, easy, and uneventful. I would prefer that outcome to even a scheduled c-section, just for the purpose of avoiding abdominal surgery. My fear is that the injury this time could be worse. I am not opposed to c-sections on principle at all. My baby last time was pretty average size - 7 lbs 11 oz with an average head.

New poster here. OP, this was pretty much my exact situation. Had a third degree tear with the first, but a pretty easy recovery. With my second, I think (it's all a blur) I had another third degree tear (I know they had to stitch me up). Second baby came pretty quickly compared to first (was induced with first, but not with second). Again, after second, my recovery was pretty easy (no major horror stories like you sometimes hear).