:eek: Oh.My.God. So it wasn’t just me? “You may experience discomfort” my ass. the first pee, too. Major hurt there, with lots of embarrasment thrown in for good measure.
Yeah. Ow. Ow ow ow ow.
Please, please VBAC next time. Please. Any listening deities.
I am Latina, 4’10" and fat. My ex is white, 5’ 10" and skinny. The Princess weighed 6 lbs. 9 oz. when she was born. Still, I had a (planned) C-section because of a large fibroid tumor that was blocking the birth canal. Also, it turned our the baby was breech. It took me several weeks to recover, but I still think about what might have happened if I hadn’t had that option.
As someone upthread said, a planned c-section for medical reasons is not the same as a purely elective c-section for convenience, status or fear of vaginal childbirth. I’m so glad you had that option available, too!
No, Maastricht, you’re not alone. It’s common to all abdominal surgeries, and c-section cuts deeper than most AND rearranges your intestines while it’s at it. Not that having a bowel movement after an episiotomy is a picnic, but it’s not nearly as bad as after a c-section. I’ve done one of each. Even taking into account my back labor, anterior presentation and the stuck placenta, I’d rather do that all over again than another c-section. (Alas, my c-section required a vertical incision, so VBAC is out of the question for me.)
One other risk you hardly ever hear about c-section is that the same vagina tightening hormones release as after a vaginal childbirth, only with a c-section, the vagina was never stretched. While some men might see this as a benefit, not a drawback, I’ve heard from a dozen c-sectioned women that sex after healing is incredibly painful, and it’s led to problems in their marriages.
I’m glad we have the technology to save lives, but I just don’t grok it being done for anything other than medical reasons. But I don’t understand elective surgery, period.
Not to mention that you CAN have painkillers these days when you deliver vaginally. I had an epidural, and didn’t feel that much pain at all. I’m sure it was a hell of a lot easier than having my gut cut open! And I was walking around an hour after delivery, and by the 3rd day, was more or less back to normal.
True, but my daughter and I got a horrible infection during the 18 hours of labor (leading to fetal distress and the emergency c-section) and we’d both have certainly died without the c-section. So risk of infection during labor surely isn’t to be sniffed at, either? It was so bad that daughter had to have a lumbar puncture at 2 days old, and we were both stuck in hospital recovering from the infection for 2 weeks after the birth. Plus, as I stated above, the recovery from the c-section was an eggwalk compared with labor.
If there’s a next time, which I highly doubt as my labor has put me off the whole thing a million times over, I’d have an elective c-section if possible, something I really disapproved of prior to actually going through the experience myself. Labor to me was much, much worse than shown in TV or movies. I screamed so loud and so long my voice didn’t recover for 3 days. I’ll never, ever forget that pain. I honestly thought the human body would pass out rather than go through that amount of agony, and I’m usually a pretty tough old bird.
Maybe you can clear something up, then. I live in a town with a large Hispanic (Mexican) population. When my sister was in the hospital delivering her first baby, there were a number of Mexican women also delivering babies the same day. My sister mentioned that almost every one of the Mexican women was doing a whole lot of yelling and screaming, on the level of what’s so often depicted in TV or movie childbirth scenes. When my sister asked about it, a doctor or nurse said, “They all do that,” with additional words to the effect that it was a cultural thing - and that most of the Mexican women giving birth would have their mother and/or sisters there encouraging them to scream and holler.
If true, what’s up with that?
(I’ll add that my sister’s first delivery was remarkably easy - apparently only 45 minutes of labor. Second baby, not so much - Natalie came out with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck and a blue face, and wasn’t breathing for something like six minutes after delivery. Miraculously, the doctors were able to revive her, and there was no brain damage. She’s 7 now and actually seems well ahead of the curve developmentally.)
It is a cultural thing. I don’t know about the Latin American cultures in particular, but in general, we react to pain in the way in which we’ve seen those around us do it. Watch a toddler fall on his face, and then look around to see the reactions of the adults before he decides if he’s going to laugh or cry or just get up and keep walking. When I took a childbirthing class in the early '90s, we were shown one of those “here’s how it works” videos. Before pushing play, the instructor (a labor and delivery nurse) wrinkled her nose and said, “This was made in California, so the women make a lot of noise. We don’t do that here.” She was absolutely right - the level of moaning and "woo"ing was ridiculous to Midwestern ears.
Although things have loosened up a bit in the intervening years - there was more noise on the L&D floor when I was there in '05. But still - yeah, cultural thing.
This is a perfect illustration of how experiences vary so much from person to person. I had a c-section after almost 24 hours of labour with my son. The labour was torture, pure torture for the almost 14 hours before I got the epidural.
The pain from the C-section, however, was almost non-existent. I was actually refusing the pain medication after the first 12 hours or so. The nurses thought I was crazy. The first time I went to the bathroom was uncomfortable, but not horrifically painful. The incision pulled and was sore, but compared to labor, it was a cakewalk. I’m always confused when people describe the pain of childbirth as “exhilarating”, there was nothing exhilarating about that suffering.
I’m more than likely going to end up with a planned section because it will only have been a year and four months from my last section when this one is due. I am ok with that.
I had an appendectomy in 2005 that required about a 2.5" incision due to positioning. The recovery was not fun at all, and I can’t imagine recovering from a much more invasive surgery while attempting to take care of a newborn.
I’m planning a homebirth with my first child, due in January. My pregnancy has been low-risk (minus the fact that at 24 weeks, Josie is still breech, but there’s plenty of time to fix that), and for low-risk pregnancy a homebirth is just as safe (if not safer) than a hospital delivery. I’m doing a LOT of practicing to deal with the pain, but I understand that a good part of it is mental. Knowing that I don’t have the drugs available means that I have to deal with it, and I know that the pain will have both a purpose and an end. And for every person who talks about childbirth being excruciating, there’s this woman.
My wife is Japanese and I’m white. She’s delivered three nine pounders the normal way without any ill-effects, though in each case labor had to be induced artificially. Being very health-conscious, she believed the books and birth counselors who advised going without drugs when she had the first one. For the other two she said “Gimme the damn drugs!” right off the bat.
Good luck finding a hospital who will let you do one. More and more hospitals are disallowing them. I’m incredibly glad I got to have mine back when they were encouraged.
C-section recovery for me was awful. I ended up with an infection. I couldn’t go to the bathroom for a week. I ended up not being able to breast feed my child. I couldn’t even sit up by myself for nearly a week afterward. I would roll out of bed on my side and hope to get my feet under me.
standard birth I was up and shopping with my mother after three days. I felt great. A little tired, but I could still care for my baby.
I know my experience is not what everyone experiences, however, I do think that if American medicine is going to take away the option for VBAC, then they shouldn’t be so blanantly encouraging of elective C-sections in the first place.:mad:
It’s hilarious how much this varies. Earlier this year my best friend had a baby by emergency c-section after 22 hours of labor. Her doctor has already told her that he sees no reason she can’t have a VBAC with her next baby. It was presented to her as the default assumption-- that’s what he expects unless there’s some real reason for the section. And in other places, women have to beg and plead just to be allowed to think about trying.
It’s like a martial artist yelling. It’s supposed to help you push. Only, instead of kiai, you yell cabronhijoputatevoyamataaaaaaaar. I’ve been in a couple of martial arts classes where, when the instructor told us we had to go “ai!” when hitting, some woman would ask “can we yell cabron instead?”
I’ve mentioned before encountering a similar problem re. noises during sex. My American boyfriends expected me to yell my head off, which to me is completely unnatural (a particular idiot took offense if I made noises in Spanish, which as you can imagine didn’t help me relax)… I remember there was a thread about how the noises in Japanese porn are also different from those in US porn.
Interesting. I’ve been giving this some more thought, and I think my previous answer was hasty. While culture certainly plays a role, of course we all give reasons for why our way makes sense. Whether those reasons follow the cultural trait, or the cultural trait changes because of the reasoning is not always clear. But there are reasons, of course.
Let’s move past the “women are sinners and a good women accepts God’s punishment of pain during childbirth with dignity and quiet,” shall we? The theory behind silent childbirth as a modern medical concept probably goes back to Frederick LeBoyer, who believed that childbirth as commonly practiced was unnecessarily brutal to the infant, and that by making things more quiet, dimming the lights and cradling the infant after birth instead of yanking him upside down and slapping him to elicit a cry, might result in better outcomes for the baby. As part of his quiet and gentle approach, mothers were encouraged to be silent, or nearly silent, so as not to frighten the baby. Certainly his ideas about the ideal childbirth went on to inform other natural childbirth theories and techniques, and the silence, or at least calm quietness, of the laboring mother is certainly one that came along for the ride.
In our Lamaze-inspired childbirth class, we were taught that to make noise, you have to constrict your throat, and that if you constrict your throat, your cervix follows suit and labor is slowed. So to keep things going, you don’t constrict anything, including your throat, and you don’t make much noise.
In Bradley, they encouraged us to be quiet, and if we need to make noise, make them “open” sounds - very low pitched “Ahhh…” or “Ooooo…”, and they adamantly discouraged tight high pitched sounds. The low, open sounds were supposed to help you to keep open and relaxed, instead of tight high sounds closing you up.
So there’s some of the theory behind *quiet *childbirth.
Regarding noise in labor - I had no cultural expectation (that I am aware of) either to be quiet or make noise. We were counseled in childbirth classes that if we are to make noise to keep them low to avoid the tensioning that **WhyNot **mentions.
I was noisier than I ever thought I’d be, and noise felt good.
It wasn’t the “ohmygodgetthiskidoutofmeNOW!” that you see in the sitcoms, and it wasn’t the “Crap! I just dropped a safe on my toe!” sort of yell of pain. It was very much the grunting and straining of an olympic weight lifter breaking a world record.
Actually I had a vaginal delivery where I tore - badly - and could not sit up straight for 2+ weeks, and required narcotic painkillers for most of a week… and I had a c-section where I had one narcotic pain pill, and was feeling pretty darned good after 48 hours. I admit these are not typical (very bad vaginal, very good C-section) but there ya go 
Actually I’d imagine that in general C-sections are less painful than hysterectomies (I sure hope so).
I have also heard of “too posh to push” and elective C-sections. I don’t think they’re a great idea. Major abdominal surgery when it’s not needed??? Uh, no thanks!
I’m pretty sure it’s a cultural thing. I’ve heard of other cultures where it is considered undignified to scream and make noise during childbirth. I’ve never been present during anyone else’s childbirth experience other than my own, so I can’t give any firsthand description. I had an epidural during my c-section (I had the good-old fashioned vertical incision, BTW), plus one of those handy little masks with the anesthesia, but I was mostly awake for the whole thing. I remember being nervous as hell and talking my head off throughout the procedure. No yelling, but a lot of whining. :o
Now I’m thinking about 24th-Century Star Trek-universe 1-minute deliveries.
Doctor Crusher: “Transporter room, do you have a lock on the baby?”
Transporter Chief: “Yes Doctor.”
Doctor Crusher: “Energize!”
10 seconds later…
Doctor Crusher: “Congratulations Ensign, it’s a girl!”
All should be aware that interventions such as epidurals can (not will) lead to more interventions, which can end up in a C-section.
I mention this only in the interests of educating; epidurals are not risk-free in themselves either. Pros and cons article on storknet.com
I, for example, ended up with a horrific tear and a botched epidural (not rare), which resulted in me having an excruciating spinal headache for several days – and a return to the hospital for a ‘blood patch’ to repair it (a lovely injection of my own blood into my spine – it felt like a nail being driven in). I also spiked a fever, a common effect of epidurals, which is risky for the baby.
My two following natural births, while quite exciting and certainly not pain-free, were HEAVEN compared to the “medicated” births. I was back to something quite near normal within a week for both.