c section horror stories

I am trying to decide whether to have a c-section or VBAC for baby number 2. First was an elective c-section with no reason for it. I have so much info on VBAC and the midwifes are really pro VBAC. Everytime I mention the scar rupture and all the other things that can go wrong they tell me how dangerous a c-section is. Well, I have read many many stories about VB that have gone wrong and have found some horror stories for VBAC's were the baby has died after a scar rupture. So where are the stories about the c-sections gone wrong? Who has had their bladder nicked? Or the baby die? Or the mother bleed uncontrollably or all the other things the midwifes say can happen. They say there is a much higher chance of these things happening so where are these women?

I am close to my due date and going for a VBAC with this pregnancy. Sure there are "horror stories" out there for everything both VBAC, first time births, caesers etc. but if you are going to make such a big decision I would base it on facts and studies rather than stories you find. There are risks with everything and birth isn't any different - you just have to weigh up the risks for yourself. Sure part of all the education you do includes birth stories and I have read many positive ones to encourage myself, but I have read books and studies from reputable sources to base my decision on. If I was you I would get my hands on Silent Knife, The Thinking Womans Guide to a Better Birth, The VBAC companion, New Active Birth and Labour of Love. They were my life lines when deciding what to do. Check out websites like ican too.
Good luck making your decision.

ETA: I had PPH too but was able to just take iron tabs... I think it was 700 mL... baby blues from being so drugged out of my mind I didn't bond immediately with my girl, and pain and numbness in my c/s site up to this day.

I had my bladder nicked and walked around for 24hours (after I could get out of bed) with a bag full of bloody urine. It wasn't exactly a pretty look. Luckily for me I'm pretty resiliant and bounce back quickly because some women walk around with a catheter and bag of bloody urine for longer than I did.
I also had a pph in theatre - luckily they stopped it just before I reached the point of needing a blood transfusion. Funnily enough the normal blood loss in a c-section would be regarded as excessive if it were in a vaginal birth.
I would reccomend that you read through the birth de-briefs and c-section forums.

This is not my experience as I haven't had one but my SIL needed IV antibiotics for an infection.

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This is not my experience as I haven't had one but my SIL needed IV antibiotics for an infection.

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OMG that reminded me of a mega-horror story - so I dug it up ;)
https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...upsetting.html :(

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OMG that reminded me of a mega-horror story - so I dug it up ;)
https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...upsetting.html :(

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OMG that's awful!!! my BF had a similar experience after a hysterectomy, tho...i believe any surgery is darn dangerous.

i had twins in 1988 in Coffs Harbour. because i was a first birth and a public patient, no doctor really wanted to take responsibility. i got shunted here and there and eventually got a young locum who failed to pick up that i was becoming toxaemic. he booked me in for induction at 38 weeks, with my boy/girl twins being 7.5 and 6.5 pounds respectively. my boy was a transverse breech so a caesar team was on standby. after 4 hours of a very hard induced labour i gave birth vaginally to my daughter. she was perfect, good apgars, etc. the doctor gave me ten minutes, then started to try to turn my son. within half an hour of her birth i was on a trolley heading for surgery, and being abused by the midwife because i had refused an epidural - i had only a little gas at the end. i had an emergency c/s with a general anasthetic and ended up bleeding our to the point where they gave me seven units of blood and a plasma product that gave me a histamine reaction, so another tap was inserted and i was given more drugs. the surgical registrar was elbow deep in my vagina cleaning clots out of my uterus at 4am. i nearly died. in the morning i insisted the pethidine be taken away as i was afraid of it (i'd seen a friend die of morphine and heroin addiction) i didnt see my son till he was 14 hours old an didnt have any desire to hold or feed him i went thru the motions with him till i finally bonded when he was six months old. i had no trouble bonding with his twin sister, and i BF both to 21 months. . but.... 20 years later i still have adhesions, a crooked scar, an apron, and a fear of anasthetic. it took over ten years before i could stand any pressure on my scar, a fact that led to difficulties between me and my (now ex) husband.

my younger daughter was 8.5 pounds, two weeks late, and born at home with a midwife in attendance, 30k from the nearest hospital. no trouble birthing, no scar rupture, tho it was difficult to get the high-set placenta out over the fold in my uterus where the scar was.

if i manage to get that far again, i'm going for another vaginal birth - 16 years after my last. i personally found i recovered much quicker, without the nerve damage at the scar, the crook back from being shifted in the operating theatre, and i had less trouble brastfeeding without the drugs in my system.

i also suggest you do your research on the stats, and talk to midwives and homebirth attendants. the final decision is yours, and yours alone.

My horror story is that I felt the procedure. The spinal block obviously didn't take effect enough. It was horrific & I went into shock on the table while my baby was coming out. It is all hazy what happened the first 24 hours of my daughter's life. I then reacted to the morphine...

My daughter was more affected long term than I was.

I recommend you get your hands on the excellent book about caesareans called "Delivery by Appointment". It goes through all the sorts of things that can go wrong and the type of impact it can have. The author is pro-VB but has written a very well researched and balanced book that anyone making this decision should read.

My CS experience was a very positive and empowered one however I did have problems with wound infection for a couple of months afterwards - definitely meant i was in more pain than usual and for longer than normal. However for all of that I'm still very happy with what I chose.

I have heard many horror stories, of both VB and CS. I know a woman whose son's eyeball was accidentally cut with the surgical knife and he lost it the next day. I have heard of literally dozens of babies being cut by the knife, many needing stitches and some being scarred for life. I have heard of women who lost a lot of blood, their uterus, their baby, their life. The same goes for vaginal birth, i know women who lost their babies there too.

Currently it is statistically safer for a healthy woman having a normal pregnancy to VBAC than it is to have a repeat section - that is in terms of both mortality (mums and babies who die) and morbidity (injury and ongoing issues for both mum and babe). BUT the statistics of safety for NEITHER are at 100%. That means that whichever you choose you risk injury and death. We all do. EVery birthing woman in the history of the race risked it too. The risks of mortality are lower than they have been, the risks of unnecessary morbidity are a little higher (women run the risk of intervention and injury that was not necessitated by medical need). The reality of the figures is that for the vast majority of women, whether they have a CS or a VB, will be fine. Within the choice, VB is slightly safer and reduces morbidity significantly (no surgical wound for starters).

Are you undecided? Or do you want to go for a section but feel judged or questioned on your decision? I had a homebirth, and NO homebirth horror story would have put me off, i knew in my heart it was what i really wanted, and part of that was the knowledge that unless something went wrong with the pregnancy it was also my safest option.

Read the studies, study the statistics, find your OWN decision, and when it's made you can tell everyone who questions it your reasons. If they would have made a different decision based on the same statistics, well, boo to them! It's your body and your baby, not theirs!

Bx

I have had a caesarean myself. The proceedure went well, apart from the epi not working and having to have a general anaesthetic - which scared me terribly emotionally. Also I got a baldder infection and my wee resembled a rose' wine.

I know someone who ended up with a twisted bowel after her caesar. Was in excruitiating pain and had to go back for more surgery within days of the caesar to fix it.

I had an unplanned c/s - the procedure itself was straightforward, but a couple of days later, I ruptured one of my internal stitches which pulled through my abdominal muscle and rested on my sciatic nerve. Excruciating! I couldn't walk, or even place any weight on one leg.

I went home in a wheelchair (in a high-set house), with a shower chair, an over-toilet frame, and a prescription for doloxene, voltaren AND oxycontin, which gave me nightmares and, I think, affected my baby via breastmilk.

My OB has told me that this is a very, very unusal occurence, but I am terrified of having another c/s in case it happens again. No new mother should ever have to start her baby's life drugged up to the eyeballs, in a wheelchair unable to walk, and in enormous amounts of pain.

Hmm. I see where you're coming from - sometimes they CS horror stories aren't spoken about - sometimes they're too trumatic for women to speak about, and sometimes the complications are accepted as part of the process. It's been suggested by recent research that you're something like 7 times as likely to die following a CS (but bear in mind the chances of dying are really low - about 8 / 100,000). The chances of the baby needing oxygen and having respiratory distress can be as high as 30%. Bleeding is very common but not every woman needs a blood transfusion. infections can be common too, but most are easily treated with antibiotics. I have known 6 women to need hysterectomies (this is in 8 years) owing to excessive blood loss or massive infection. DVTs, pulmonary embolus and blood clots are being seen more, and some hospitals have started treating women preventatively for this.

On the other side, the chance of uterine rupture is about 0.5% (so 99.5% unlikely).

A friend of mine had an elective CS as her ob told her it was the safest way, this was several years ago, and her wound was not sewn up properly, she reopened, had infection, internal bleeding, lost her uterus and had to push legal action for 5 years before fault was admitted on the part of the hospital, initially they said it was a standard risk of surgery. Another one, who I don't know personally but at my work I was referring the husband to agencies that can give assistance, a newly arrived woman with 3 kids already was told CS was better, She thought I guess that a modern country like Oz would know best so had the CS in spite of the fact that she had her other 3 perfectly well with just the village midwife, she is now paralized as a result of the epidural piercing something in her spine.
I personally have had 2 CS, both questionable, and even though mine went "well" I have to say that I would not wish that 6 weeks of recovery time on anyone, the second one was worse, I could hardly walk, hardly pick up baby, my wound took a long time to heal the second time, and I required a blood transfusion. In most other fields of science methods are being developed to minimise the need for surgery, such as keyhole surgery, so why is society so determined to cut women open when they are pregnant, whether there is a need or not. Someone said that birthing, no matter how it is done is risky, and that is true, but CS do not get rid of risks, they just have a whole lot of new ones and that should be openly admitted by surgeons, not touted as the answer to everything as if it is a simple and risk free procedure. When they talk about safer my question is safer for who, me or the hospital. In this litigious society I understand that they have to take steps to minimise their potential exposure to litigation, but CS where most things that go wrong fall under the general risks of surgery to which we sign a waver is not the answer. Having said that every woman has the right to choose how she births her baby, and choosing a CS is a perfectly legitimate choice, and should be supported. SO LONG AS IT IS AN INfORMED CHOICE which often it is not as important things are left out. Most things that can go wrong with a CS can be managed by a good hospital, just like most things that can go wrong with VB. We don't get pregnant in order to birth a particular way, we get pregnant because we want a baby. My personal beef with it is that I choose not to but was manipulated into believing that I needed them, when looking back on my labour notes I didn't.
Hope this makes sense, good luck with whatever you decide to do, make sure it is what YOU want, not what is more convenient for someone else or because you were pressured one way or the other!!
Kate

I have had 2 c/s one emergency and one classed as elective (although i really wanted a vbac)
i was so scared of having another c/s after my first.
the procedure went as normal, wited in recovery but 30min after being taken back to my room i was in intense pain. It was like the drugs wore off too soon and i felt everything that had happened. I could not move a cm without screaming in pain (and i have a reasonably high pain threshold) It got so bad i think i lost conciousness and apparently i said i wanted to die or be put to sleep because i couldnt handle another second of the pain.
My son was sick in Nicu all i wanted to do was to go see him but this was a major setback and even after the pain was under control it set back my recovery, i could not walk until 48hrs after and even that was only from the bed to a wheel chair to be taken to see my son.....

so when i had the second c/s they gave me a self administered shot of whatever it was and it was good i felt no pain but was as high as a kite for the first 24hrs....

i'd do anything to be able to have a child naturally but some things just wernt meant to be.

My SIL just recently had her first c/s, after having 5 kids vaginally (she had it because he was breech and her waters had ruptured). Her baby boy was born with cuts on his bottom from the surgery - apparently this is fairly common! She was also in a lot of pain afterwards and now, 2 weeks later, is still in discomfort and feels sore when walking around. I went to see her in the hospital after he was born and one of the first things she said to me was "Don't ever have a caesarian if you can help it". She said the pain of vaginal birth is nothing compared to how she felt after her c/s, and the ongoing recovery.

i had an emergancy c section , and if can avoid having one all together then i would encourage you to go for it ! .

for me it was 12 hrs before i got to meet my dd and today at 11 months it hard to think of her as mine . due to infection and being able to feel there insisions and amoungst all the other things that happened that day i find it hard to talk about it ashamed all most that i had no control over the way she was brought in to the world .i ended up having a histerectomy because of there mistakes im 22 .

But everyone is different and i think its wonderful you are concidering your options .Goodluck

Bon around 10% of breech babies born by section are cut by the surgeon's knife.

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i ended up having a histerectomy because of there mistakes im 22 .

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:hug: I'm so sorry. That's awful. :hug:

Bx

Miss H - I am soo gald you bought this up, there is NO information around. This happened to me June 2006 - and am very keen to find others.
Apparently it happens to 1 in 1000 - but my doctor failed to recognise that i was going septic and it wasnt for about 3 days and collapsed lungs that they then did an emergency laparotomy and I ended up in ICU for 3-4 days and in hospital for a month after I had my son.

I can give you a horror story if you really want. This is not my story, but a girl I know quite well (she's sort of my sister in law).

She had a c/s due to a failed induction at 40 weeks, 5 days. If you ask me, there was no need to induce yet and all of this could have been prevented had her doctors had a little more patience.
She had been given an epi during her labour and then another top-up for the c/s. Well, it didn't work. Not like it should anyway. She said it worked enough to numb her a bit, but she felt everything. They didn't believe her when she told them that she felt the incision so they kept going. Her sister who was waiting outside says that she has never heard screaming like that in her life. Ella (the woman who was having the c/s) says that she felt hands in her stomach and although it felt a little foggy, it hurt like hell. They noticed their mistake and put her uner completely to finish the op. When the baby finally got taken out (it took them much longer than normal), it was blue and didn't breath. The father tells me of his horror at the attempts to rescucitate his daughter and at the same time, his girlfriend lying there, being stitched up with the memory of her screaming still fresh in his mind. He was soooo traumatised for months after the birth. They did manage to revive the little girl. She's now almost 1 1/2 and although her development is on the slow end of the spectrum, there does not seem to be any brain damage. At least nothing significant. The mother was only able to hold her little girl around 10 hours after the birth. She was in enormous pain. She suffered a nasty infection from the c/s and then, a few days later they discovered a big abscess growing under her scar. So they had to open it up again and drain it. All in all, she was in hospital for about a month. She was soooo sick. It took forever for the infection to clear up completely.
The story has an ultimately good ending as she still managed to bond well with her daughter and BFing worked out well, too. She is an amazingly strong woman and only a couple of days after her ordeal my mother talked to her about the experience. She said, looking at her daughter's face: "I would go through this again in a heart beat!"

1 year later her sister (the one who heard the screaming) had to have a c/s herself and she was absolutely freaked out by that. But hers went really smoothly and she recovered very quick.

I do however agree with the others. A decision shouldn't be based on which stories are the more horrifying but rather on statistical chances of outcome. From this point of view the picture is pretty clear: maternal and fetal outcome is better after a VBaC than after a repeat elective c/s. Of course there are circumstances that counterindicate a VBaC, so talk to your health professionals. I am glad to hear they seem to be supportive of a VBaC. Most women are not that lucky and have to fight for the right to have a VBaC.

I hope your birth will go smoothly no matter what you decide to do.
All the best, Saša

I know of 3 other women who have recently had obstetric hysterectomies :(

it wasnt meant to put u off . but think its fantasic ur getting so much information . i only wished now that i had of been a little more informed . good luck

Cheryle, I'm so sorry to hear your story. I can't begin to imagine what you're going through.
You have great taste in baby names, though :-)
Saša

Oh this thread is SOOO making me not want to have another CS.

Maybe it's just me, but this isn't really "supportive" of c-sections to read horror stories.

Just my opinion as i came here looking to read/inform myself in a supportive environment and now can't read any more (have just jumped to the end to post this)

I apoligise if I offend anyone, just my opinion.

Rosead, you have a point, this is kind of in the wrong section.

Saša

Rosead you are right. Maybe a mod can move this thread to the general birth discussion section or something?

I think we need to equip ourselves with all the knowledge there is and that includes the things that go wrong. I have read the posts in the VBAC section about VBAC babies dying after the uteris ruptured. Now I wanted to know what could go wrong with a c/s as no one seems to want to talk about it.

MissH - I think the issue is only with where this thread is placed, not the content. You asked for horror stories and there are many stories here that people have posted for you, although as I originally posted I don't think horror stories about either VBAC or C/S should be the basis for a decison as important as this. Rosead was just saying that she came to the c/s support forum and this thread was here and should probably be moved to the general birthing section. Good luck making your decision.

I have spent hours and hours in the last 2 1/2 years for others who may have had the same issue as me (nicked bowel) I didnt come here to this site to have a whinge, I have remained silent for all this time.

I can sit here today and accept that there are risks in any surgery and that a nicked bowel is one of those - although perhaps that should have been disucussed throughout my pre-natal period with the OBGYN - he failed to mention it because I wasnt necessarily planning on a c-section. You go to these classes and they go on about a plan etc, but dont mention that there are so many emergency c-sections - what - so they arent scaring you? jeez, if i wasnt scared then, I am totally freaking out now of going through a VBAC and being in the same positon of having a rushed c-section and potentially having some other doctor that I paid thousands of dollars to safely deliver my baby, then be too arrogant to accept that he may have made an error.

If I was more aware of what the risks were, I would have been much more forceful and demanded they commence testing, rather than accepting 3 days of agonising pain. rather than being thought of as a 'princess' who had a low pain threshold because I had a c-section.

I agree with you. I am still going ahead with my elective c-section even though I have read all these stories. Now I know what to look out for and will hope that I do not have any complications. I cannot get a vbac around my head and my baby is posterior. I do not want an emergency c/s either so an elective c/s is the way for me. Many people will disagree with this I know and maybe I will too once it is over, but this is the decision I have made. If I could magically get the baby to appear outside my uteris then I would take that option. I'm too paranoid about everything that can go wrong with the baby during a VB. Caesar here we come!

Miss H, it sounds like you are happy with the decision you have made. Good on you. It is your decision and it doesn't matter what other people think about it.
A friend of mine was in a similar situation recently. Except that for most of her pregnancy she was fighting for the right to VBaC. But in the end, she decided for a repeat elective c/s because she didn't like the chance of having anotehr emergency c/section. Because it was planned, they tried to keep her as involved as possible, she got to hold and feed her son immediately and all in all she was extremely happy with the birth of her second son. With her first, she didn't get to hold him until 3 hours after the birth and she found that quite traumatic. She also recovered much quicker after the second c/s. So things can go very smoothly. She does feel a little sad that she never got to experience a natural birth, but as i said, she is genuinely happy with how things went.
All the best with your birth.

SAša

I think you are doing the best thing to save yourself from the emergency, as I will do in future, as I think thats when things tend to go wrong. I just have to work out now what I am going to do even before i thnk about trying to conceive. I have such bad scarring all over my abdomen that they are talking of having to do a vertical c-section to avoid the other 2 scar tissue - join the dots so to speak - although may have to have laparotomy scar sniped to allow for pregnant belly, and i still dont know if my stomach muscles will cope - anyway all these things I want to get sorted before the next one, otherwise considering adoption because after not being able to bond with my son and still feel that I am jsut a care taker, that I thnk that my husband and I can cope with that, anyway, commencing proceedings against my doc for neglecting to commence testing and I am still not coping.
I wish you the best, jsut remember, if you think something is wrong it usually is, so dont worry about being difficult to the doctors.

Margery, I understand completely where you are coming from, just wanted to quickly say that, although it is true that a planned c/s is less risky than an emergency one, statistics clearly show that a VBaC is safer than a planned elective repeat c/s.
In your case, with extensive scar tissue, it might be different, though.
Saša

Sasa, where did your friend have her repeat CS? Was it on the Gold Coast?

yep, gold coast hospital

My pregnancy was very complicated they induce with cervidill then after 32 hours of walking laying in bed and labour pains i was finally diahlayed to just enough for her to break my water and then they started the patosin no one tells you that tha stuff really sucks i had just enough time to breath between contrations needless to say i gave up and got the eppi so the next morning around 10am (which was sunday by this time i had been in the hospital and in active labor since friday around 7)they finally say im ready ok push her heart rate drops and i hear the words ive been dreading emergency c section so they wheel me in (after about 53 hours of labour) every things going ok till i start throwing up then i go numb from my chin down the epi is back washing i cant even feel my husband holding my hand ok shes out ok she should be crying but all i hear is the nurses come on breath baby breath the color is draining from my hubbys face finally she breathes thank god ok she is off to neonatal my hubby in tow as i lay there thanking god i can hear them counting everthing then i hear one turn to the other and say "im missing a needle" "are you sure" "ive counted three times" then one of them leaves the room i finally get back to my room and befor i even get to hold my new daughter i go threw 3 sets of x rays nothing they cant find it i finally get situated then they wanted me to use the bathroom ok no prob except its a new nurse im 4 10 so i need help getting in the bed they brought me a step stool great except i need help sitting down which meant this nurse was suppossed to hold my hand and let me ease down well she let go as i fell i thought oh crap well nothing tore but i was in tremendous pain after finally going home i was till in pain more than expected thre days later im running a fever and cant put pressur on my right leg i call the doc for an emergency app which turns out i have an infection and tore a nerve to this day i still have some pain almost three years later but docs say that cant find any thing wrong go figure oh yeah did i tell you they never found the needle

ryrysmommy06, my god, that is a nightmare story. I'm so sorry you had to go through that and are still battling with the repercussions of it.
This story is not only highlighting what can go wrong during a c/s but really what can go wrong when we mess around with labour. Had you not been induced, you wouldn't have needed the epi. Without the epi. your DDs heartrate probably wouldn't have dropped, so you wouldn't have needed the epi in the first place. That they lost a needle is just unbelievable and unforgivable.

Saša

My first pregnancy, the baby was breech. They were even pro breech birth back then, but I had to have a ct scan of my pelvis. It was 11cm. They said they liked 12cm in case baby's head was in funny position. Fair enough. A c-section was booked.

I had my spinal block, and I think because I was the 3rd c-section that day (pushed back because of some emergencies) they forgot to test me beforehand. I FELT them cutting me. I felt a LOT of pain as they rumaged about and lifted her out. I then felt like I was being pulled from one side of the room to the other as they stitched me up. I was crying and they stuck a gas mask over me to help with the pain, but that actually made me hallecinate a bit. I kept hearing the same person over and over saying "Isn't she beautiful?". I breastfed in recovery (when FINALLY my legs felt totally NUMB), and had cracked nipples from the start. I persisted and breastfed through 4 agonising weeks!

My next baby was a VBAC...no breastfeeding probs at all! I did end up with my first ever haemorroid though and some stitches. I would STILL take THAT over c-section recovery anyday!! 1 week and felt normal again!!

Laura was also breech and another c-section. Perfect one this time (I was so scared I would feel things again!). I felt nothing. Yay! But AGAIN breastfeeding problems from the start..cracked nipples etc. More weeks of agonising pain!

Those scans are crap though, often they are done with you lying down, not under the influence of labour hormones. In labour all the ligaments loosen and baby's head has 4 separate bones which can mould and move... it is well known that scans are not advisable to judge the pelvic capacity, because lying on your back minimises pelvic space, closes it in... to make more pelvic space you can squat - up to 30% more space... urgh irks me that they still do it. There is a Cochrane Review for this even, saying they are not ideal to do to judge the pelvic capability!!!

Yeah I reckon it was just their way of convincing me (con me) into having a c-section!! What you said just convinced me! I even wondered if they gave me my own c.t scan lol. Could have given me anyone's and said "Oh sorry hon, it's too small...off to surgery for you". I'm a big girl (5'11") and my baby was only 6lb 11oz. I think I could have delivered her safely. They said at 36 weeks that my baby was 'small for dates' too. Though I hardly believe everything drs say lol. One of them told me my baby was head down (it was her bum hehe).