community attitudes

[gardeningkate]

I am just putting up a quick post to say that I am finding community attitudes just as entrenched about CS and VB as the hospitals and doctors, everyone is an expert because their doctor said this and their doctor said that......."Are you sure you want to take that risk"......"They know what they are doing"........"you are going to kill your own baby :"....... And this is not me being beligerent and telling everyone I am going for vbac 2, they ask, and then put in their 5 cents worth. I was prepared for a hospital battle, and have a midwife and a plan, and hubbie is now on board, so that helps, I know that their attitudes are a result of not knowing all the facts and being misinformed, but I wasn't prepared to have to put up with the barrage of (well meant) advice (is advice the right word? )
Just letting off steam, part of me (the contrary part) is more determined that ever to do it just to show them it can be done......
Thanks all for the ears!
Kate

[Trillian]

Awwww the catch22 is that you would still have gotten comments anyway even if you chose to have another c/s - it doens't matter what we do, there is always someone who wants to add their 2cents worth and tell you that you've done the wrong thing.

[Arimeh]

Yup I agree totally with Trillian. Doesn't matter how we birth our babies - our choices are always judged by others

[KimmyF]

I agree with everyone else, why do people feel it is their right to comment on how others give birth to their babies, it is different for everyone and personal. I had an assisted VB with gass for pain and people felt it was their place to tell me I was "stupid" not to have an epidural or I should have "demanded" a CS. I say stand by your right to have the birth you want!

[AlisonF]

I find the worst people for misguided comments are older women. My first son was an emergency c-section, he was about 3 weeks old when we were out at the supermarket and an older lady behind us at the checkout was cooing over him and asking all the usual questions ie: how big was he born, how old etc. When she got to "how did you have him?" and i said he was a c-section, her immeadiate reply was "ohh you took the easy way out!". I was soo mad inside and just wanted to launch into a tirade about how it was not the easy way out and it was what was best for my son at the time. Instead i politly smiled and walked off. I think people should learn that it makes no difference how your baby is born that day, it's the way you care for them everyday after that.

[paradise lost]

My mum had 6 kids, 4 vaginally, 3 at home and 2 c sections. My brother was a section because of placenta preavia. He was delivered at 31 weeks during a life threatening haemorhage which almost killed them both (she had 4 blood transfusions during the operation!). When he was about 7 weeks old and out of the hospital a woman in Woolworths said to her "Oh took the easy route" and my mum replied "Well, we couldn't afford one of those little white coffins so it seemed the wisest option" and stalked off. No-one messed with my mumma! LOL.

No matter HOW you birth you face opposition. I got all those comments planning a homebirth, my friend having a planned c-section due to pelvic deformity (a horse rolled on her when we were teenagers and crushed it) got them too. You can't win!

Bx

[Lulu]

Isn't it the stupidest comment though?? C-sect being the easy way out .

[Tobily]

I reckon this is right up there as one of the reasons we have so few vbacs.

In our mother's generation the maxim "once a caesar, always a caesar" was very true. Caesareans were much rarer than they are now - so when they were done it was usually because they were genuinely needed. And they were often classical incisions as opposed to the bikini incisions that they do now which are safer for vbac. So alot of people, women in particular of that generation still tend to take the view that if a caesar was done, it must have been for a good reason and you will always need to have one from now on.

We know that things have changed alot since our mothers birthed us, but I guess it takes time for attitudes to change and people to catch up. And of course it certainly does NOT help when we have "respectable" medical practitioners out there scaring people senseless about vbac and just feeding into that whole mindset

Surround yourself with a cheersquad - pick those people closest to you who are on board and aren't going to offload their own fears onto you. Anyone having a vbac has to deal with this stuff to some extent, you really do have to be choosy about what you listen to and make a conscious effort to undertake "damage control" with all the other stuff.

all the best
x

[Lulu]

I don't understand why some people think it's ok to ask HOW a child was born? Surely just asking how it all went would be ok? I've never had such a question, how rude!

There is no rule to say we have to share this information with anyone, let alone almost total strangers. Most of the time I believe people are asking to cut you down anyway .

[paradise lost]

In our mother's generation the maxim "once a caesar, always a caesar" was very true. Caesareans were much rarer than they are now - so when they were done it was usually because they were genuinely needed. And they were often classical incisions as opposed to the bikini incisions that they do now which are safer for vbac. So alot of people, women in particular of that generation still tend to take the view that if a caesar was done, it must have been for a good reason and you will always need to have one from now on.

That is precisely why i was a c-section Tobily! I was perfectly healthy and pregnancy was normal, but after my brother's emergency birth they weren't willing to let my mum try VBAC. I don't know what her uterine incision was like, her abdominal scar was low transverse, but because my brother was premature and there was full praevia it's possible they had to cut quite high to get him out without causing even more bleeding. I would have been 40weeks on NOvember 3rd, but was delivered by c-section on October 17th. Mum was the first woman in her hospital to have a section under spinal anaesthesia with me - up until then you HAD to have GA. I do think that makes a huge difference to the perceptions of women of older generations, but the attitude that they need to say exactly what is in their head, however negative and critical it is, particularly to vulnerable pregnant women, GRATES on me! LOL.

Bx

ETA - Lulu i ALWAYS ask how babies were born and follow up with "how did it go?" because i am deeply interested in women and their experiences. When a woman has a certain model of birth forced on her i want to understand how it happened and how it felt, and if she chose a certain path i want to understand why and how she feels in retrospect. I never want to cut women down. I have never met a woman who TRULY preferred to risk her baby's health than do something she didn't like the idea of.

[Lulu]

Oh I am always dying to find out all the details too, but I like to leave it a bit more open in case she didn't have the best experience and is still coming to terms with it all. It's pretty easy to see it in someones face either way it went.

I think mainly because a friend of mine always felt she had to rave about how great it was when it wasn't......and then get those comments on top was too much for her (negative ones I mean).

[paradise lost]

I know what you mean, and it can be hard for some women to talk about, but i try to create a space where they CAN talk without making them feel like they have to. For instance the last mum i spoke to who got a section she didn't want i asked how it had gone and how she was healing up. She has body issues since and will always eagerly show her scar to me now for feedback (i think she's beautiful BTW and her scar is a battle-scar won with courage and honour, not an ugly thing to be embarassed by). I wouldn't have thought she'd want to talk about it, but she really does with me. My XSIL, whose induction i was a birth assistant at, never discusses that birth (which was horrific) and i never push her to except that if she makes a negative comment about it i remind her of how brave she was and how hard she worked. It's such a shame women are so divided about such feminine issues - if we could all talk freely there would be so much less trauma and defensiveness about birthing and parenting and maybe we wouldn't all end up feeling so lonely half the time.

One day i'm going to come to Aus and sit cross legged on your kitchen table and make you give me a blow by blow of your 3 births

Bx

[DANNIIM]

I must admit i would never ask a complete stranger how she birthed her baby, maybe a close friend but that would be it, as i think it is a real personal experience and since there are alot of women that feel down enough on themselves for how they birthed you just never know if you are going to step over that invisible line, JMO.
You know what though there are always ppl out there wanting to give there opinion on anything and everything, you just have to either ignore there comments or tell them you don't want to know about it.

[gardeningkate]

It is funny, I guess you can read the intentions of the asker by the way they ask, some ask to validate their own choices/outcomes by criticising yours, others are genuinely interested, I don't mind talking to those who are interested and supportive, and find myself having to resist the urge to make sarcastic comments to others, what does their birth weight have to do with a total stranger in the supermarket, maybe I should say I don't know, I just found them on the street and thought they were cute, or that they are adopted from the third world, my husband is Japanese so I could get away with that one, or I could pretend to be the nanny.......
I am confident in my decision, and am now armed with the information to tell others if they ask what I am doing, I feel that I need to contribute to counteracting the misinformation out there, so don't mind telling people what I am doing, but do find the reaction and misinformed comments frustrating, I guess we have to start somewhere.
Thanks all!!
Kate

[Lulu]

Alot of it is "in the delivery" , and how you reply to those questions. I am the same, but I suppose people around me (read: MIL) got used to my answers and the way I was going to do things.......but see I am "validated" because I already had one birth the way I wanted it .

I was always very firm about things, and quick to step on anyone that dropped stupid comments. I'd say if I sounded even vaguely unsure or underconfident there would be some people going right for the jugular. Wouldn't it be wonderful if WOMEN didn't do that to each other??

grr grr grrr!

Good Luck with it all Kate.

Hoobley - there is a space on my bench any ole time - I'll just scrape the playdough off it