I can’t believe anyone would choose a big abdominal scar over a vaginal birth. That just doesn’t make sense to me. The recovery time is much longer, and you’re left with that big scar afterwards. It’s one thing if you have to get a C-section for some reason, but choosing one sounds crazy to me.
Whynot is correct. And bikini cuts, or transverse c-sections, were availble at least in the early 80’s, likely a bit sooner.
VBACs cannot be attempted with a vertical incision as the risk of rupture is too high.
Good stuff, that. How’s it been working for you so far?
Ahem Perhaps I’m missing something, but the only reference to C-section I see in that article says:
(bolding mine in both quotes)
I’ve heard similar sentiments a lot, and I don’t understand it. Why is vaginal the only “proper” way to give birth? Why does having a sizable pelvis make one a better person? Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying C-sections are a superior way of giving birth. I had both mine vaginally, one with horrid complications and a nightmare of a recovery, the other quite easily. I just don’t understand the mindset that tells a woman she’s “less than” for having a C-section, for whatever reason.
Oh, MissGypsy, what you see here is downright polite compared to the attitudes you’ll read on other message boards. Do a search for “elective C section” and see the venom people spew about vaginal births being God’s will and anyone who would choose a section has no business having children.
Some women seem to have no problem judging other women extremely harshly for their decisions regarding pregnancy, childbirth and of course, child rearing. Why, it’s not only completely unnatural for anyone to chose to formula feed their child, that’s just abusive! And the mother who wants to return to work and place their child in daycare? She should have just put her child up for adoption! If you allow your child to sleep in your room, you’re creating an entitled, dependent brat. If you allow your child to fuss for a few minutes (or gasp Cry It Out), you’re a neglectful monster.
Of course, I’m not referring to anyone here. I’m sure we all know that we could not possibly understand someone else’s circumstances. We weigh our options and do the research and agonize over decisions. Why would we assume any less of those who want or need to choose a different path?
I knew I was inviting a firestorm when I wrote that - but I hoped all the first person stuff would make it clear that this is just how I felt. Please don’t generalize to others. At some level I know I’m not supposed to feel that way, but I do. It has nothing to do with what’s proper or right - but about the fact that my I feel that my human body should be able to do certain things - things that my DNA is designed for. Getting pregnant, giving birth, and lactating are some of those things. So are eating, digesting, deficating, walking, getting up out of a chair, etc. etc. etc. If I required a colostomy bag I wouldn’t feel like less of a person, but I’m awfully glad that my body works well enough that I don’t need one.
It’s like climbing a mountain. If I climb a mountain - even though it’s hard, sweaty work - it’s a different experience than taking a gondola to the top. True, you get to the top either way. Mountain climbers aren’t better people than gondola riders. There are lots and lots of people who couldn’t climb on their own and need to take a gondola.
Some people might feel like taking a gondola is the only way, and, what’s more, those who elect to climb on their own are misguided, masochistic, nature freaks.
But I know that if I climbed on my own two feet I’d feel a real sense of accomplishment and be happy that my body was able to get me to the top.
Long Time First Time, I wish I could articulate to you how condescending and hateful your words sound. Comparing a mother’s c-section birth to a colostomy bag?
Any woman who has gestated and delivered a child has given birth.
Take it easy, here.
I really don’t think that’s what she did. All she said was that the human body is ideally designed to do certain things. Giving birth vaginally is one of those things. Defecating is another. So are eating, sleeping, walking, etc. She, personally, seems to have some somewhat negative feelings about not being able to have given birth the “originally planned” way. I’d guess that comes, at least in part, from having her doctor tell her she wasn’t built right to do it. Please don’t read too much into what she said, especially since she has specifically said that she was only talking about her own feelings.
Dunno yet. I finally gave in and ordered it a few days ago from N.Z., and it’ll take 14 days to arrive. I really hope it gets here in time - she’s drinking 3-4 more ounces a day than I can pump. Right now, I still have some frozen from when she was in the hospital, but it’s not going to last much longer at this rate. It’s like my body just reached this plateau of production where pumping’s not increasing it and since she won’t nurse to increase the supply, this is all I’m gonna get. sigh [/hijack]
Long Time First Time, I agree 100% with what you’re saying. Yes, I think the colostomy bag analogy is a fair one. I think the mountaintop climb is even better. Yes, when I have to rely on medical intervention - be it crutches when I sprained my ankle, medication when I’m depressed or an emergency c-section - I feel like my body has failed me. Not that I’VE failed, but my body has. Like when I’m weeding and my tool breaks, I don’t feel like a failure as a gardener, but I feel my tools have failed me. My body is my most intimate and prized tool, and when it doesn’t do all I ask of it, it’s disappointing.
I get over it, of course! I’m thrilled WhyBaby is alive, and she would not have been with a vaginal delivery. I’m every bit as much a mother to her as to my son, delivered vaginally 12 years ago. But, as someone who’s done both, I do not believe they are “the same thing.” We didn’t even know she was born until someone pointed at her across the room, being wrapped in a blanket. There was no release of all that energy I had built up (and I know had I gone throughthe full 9 months of pregnancy, a labor and then c-section, there would have been even more of a build-up.) There was no epiphany, no crossing of the threshhold, none of the spiritual things inherent in vaginal childbirth that make it an initiation, a rite of passage in the most literal sense.
Those were the things I felt my body cheated me of, and they are very important psychological and spiritual things.
I think we’d be better off seeing how we can provide those moments to mothers who need a c-section, rather than brushing aside their feelings of letdown and disappointment with a “as long as you have a healthy baby, who cares how she got out?” I care. I care a lot. Doesn’t mean I wish I hadn’t had the c-section. But it does mean I have real, honest grief about it and I’d like to be able to share those feelings with someone without getting blasted for being hateful.
Well, I will excuse myself from the thread, then. I do apologize if I found offense where none was intended. My c-sections were medically necessary, and without them, someone would have died. I never felt that I had failed at motherhood or childbirth because I required the help of a doctor to deliver my children. Instead, I felt complete and total joy that my children were finally with me after 40 long weeks of waiting to meet them.
I thought the pendulum was already swinging back the other way when my son was born (six years ago). People were examining c-section rates and thinking hospitals with high rates were less desirable. Maybe to little effect, though, if rates haven’t dropped.
What I don’t get is the normativeness of it–and now it’s flowing in a new direction! I mean, the gondola analogy–do you really think the “gondola riders” are looking down on people who decided to hoof it up the mountain? Do you really believe moms who had a c-section think women who have vaginal births are wrong? I’ve read many discussions and heard opinions that ran the gamut, but this is the first I’ve heard that c-section moms supposedly think their way is the only right way.
Also keep in mind that not all c-sections are easy little gondola rides. Some women labor hard for hours before getting them. Just because they didn’t push didn’t mean they didn’t have pain and physical and emotional challenges. And women with scheduled c-sections may miss labor, but they’ve got recovery to deal with.
I know you’re just talking about your own experience, but for the sake of discussion, c-section deliveries can be very different than yours. I think yours was a very extreme circumstance. When I had my c-section, I was awake the whole time and my husband was by my side. I was completely aware of the moment my child left my body and got to see and touch him while his cord was still attached. So, although c-section and vaginal deliveries are very different in many ways, it’s not a given that a c-section delivery would be devoid of some of the characteristics you describe.
It’s just analogy after all - it’s got it’s limits. And recovery from the surgery is worse than recovery from a normal birth.
But, yes, I’ve heard women who have elected to get C-sections for non-medical reasons speak very disparagingly of those who want to labor without intervention. I’ve spoken to women who don’t understand why anybody would want to feel even one tiny labor twinge or be surprised by labor (hence they schedule).
Okay, I have never given birth (although I hope to do so in the next year), but honest-to-God, as much as giving birth scares me (I watched a pretty hideous episode of A Baby Story last week - one of the perils of working at home - my TV pretty much stays tuned to TLC in the mornings so I don’t forget to turn on Clean Sweep), I am MUCH more okay with the idea of shoving a seven lb newborn out of my hoo-ha than I am getting cut and having the kid pulled out of my stomach. Why would ANYONE choose to be cut? (And I’m not talking about various medical issues that require a C-section…).
I have a friend who HAS to be in charge of every event in her life - she is planned right down to the last second of EVERY day. She is now pregnant and wants a C-section planned. Personally, I think she’s nuts, but she doesn’t understand why ANYONE would not want to be able to schedule birth and have a handle on every part of it from beginning to end. To each her own, I guess, but it seems like natural childbirth would be less stressful on the baby.
E.
This wouldn’t have been the proceedure named for Caesar, but rather the more elaborate and rare proceedure named from the infamous prognostigator, Nostrildamus.
Seems to me that it’s a good idea to let your body do what it was built to do, unless physically unsafe. IANAW, but any Dr. who wants to schedule surgery instead of allowing my body to take it’s time and natural course ain’t gonna be my Dr.
Cartooniverse, male at large. ( or not so large. Whichever. 
)
I’ve certainly heard women express surprise or claim they don’t understand it. But that’s not really the same (in my mind) as saying c-sections are the only right way. I think their attitude is one of “There’s this alternative, I’m puzzled why someone wouldn’t choose to take it” because they don’t know the benefits of natural childbirth (or assume there couldn’t be any). I read something significantly more pejorative in your gondola example (one right way, masochistic freaks, etc), but perhaps I read too much into it. Sorry.
Heh, very cute.
My point that I clumsily (is that a word?) tried to make is that not every woman’s body is “built” to deliver vaginally. A narrow pelvis, a weakened uterus, a compromised cervix… none of these diminish a woman’s womanhood, or her status as a mother. Not all bodies are built the same way, and not all function in the same way. So I don’t care for this “it’s what a woman’s body was built/designed/intended to do” sort of stance. My mother’s body had no problem having babies 12 months apart. My SO’s ex nearly died when she had their 2nd in a 14-month span. After a bout with cancer and a couple of surgeries, I was told I could never sustain a pregnancy full-term, because my uterus and cervix were so weakened. Right. Two kids now, neither one premature. (three weeks late, I tell you. I’ll never let that boy live it down. Three weeks. I missed Thanksgiving waiting for him to come out. Almost missed Christmas. Three weeks. Stubborn little slow-poke.)
My sister in law cannot fathom why I was upset about having a c-section. She had an elective one with her first, and is planning another elective with her second (if she can conceive again.) She thinks my wanting a vaginal birth was “barbaric” and “icky” (her words.) Her view was that I was lucky to have a c-section so as not to have to “go through all that work.” She has said that women who give birth vaginally are “no better than animals.” So yeah, it may not be a mainstream thought pattern yet, and certainly not every or even most women think this way, but it is out there.
In March of this year, I had a non-elective caesarian to deliver my son, who was face-up with a wrapped cord and simply wouldn’t descend despite twenty-four hours of labor. My birth experience wasn’t diminished by the procedure, since I went through the entire labor except for the pushing-out bit at the end. And recovery was easier for me than it would have been had I delivered vaginally, since he and I both would have suffered a lot of mucking about due to his position. I was walking the next morning and out of the hospital in two days. Three months later, I am fully recovered, and the scar is thin and faint.
Certainly caesarians aren’t without pain, risk, and recovery, but sometimes you have no choice but to take the gondola. Also, let’s face it; labor is scary, and in our medicalized society, we’re trained to look for the doctor when our bodies begin to do scary things.