It's brilliant to see this in writing. I've had three births, and the first was highly traumatic with damage to me and (relatively short term) my baby. I was listened to by two of the ten people in the room and that made a big difference, but the next 6 days in hospital no-one was listening, everyone was blaming me and there was a culture of mum is stupid/bad and the only person that matters is the baby even if the mum is being thwarted at every turn. It was absolutely awful. During the birth I was not allowed the window open despite the lack of air and I had to lie down despite wanting to sit up. I think broadly I was at one of the better centres but it fell badly in so many ways and no-one ever offered any kind of follow up or chance to feed back and improve things.
Thank you for writing this. I was one of the women who had a c-section and then left without painkillers. I had previous birth trauma from 18 years earlier and had plans put in place but these weren't used on the ward. I never want to be in hospital again. I only got painkillers as a result of me crying but all the other women on the ward were left. The csection was okay (as okay as a csection can be) but the aftercare ruined all my memories of it
In my experience the NCT played a very large part in the unrealistic expectations of childbirth. I had 2 caesareans and felt my experience would be really useful as an NCT teacher. I was regularly told I was 'too posh to push' by my fellow students, none of whom I think could have pushed out a transverse baby! The final straw was being told I had no right to be there as I had never experienced a contraction.
The NCT encourages a culture of competitive childbirth where the aim is to have your baby with no pain relief listening to whalesong and then breastfeed them until they are 5. Anyone who didn't was made to feel a failure
It's brilliant to see this in writing. I've had three births, and the first was highly traumatic with damage to me and (relatively short term) my baby. I was listened to by two of the ten people in the room and that made a big difference, but the next 6 days in hospital no-one was listening, everyone was blaming me and there was a culture of mum is stupid/bad and the only person that matters is the baby even if the mum is being thwarted at every turn. It was absolutely awful. During the birth I was not allowed the window open despite the lack of air and I had to lie down despite wanting to sit up. I think broadly I was at one of the better centres but it fell badly in so many ways and no-one ever offered any kind of follow up or chance to feed back and improve things.
Thank you for writing this. I was one of the women who had a c-section and then left without painkillers. I had previous birth trauma from 18 years earlier and had plans put in place but these weren't used on the ward. I never want to be in hospital again. I only got painkillers as a result of me crying but all the other women on the ward were left. The csection was okay (as okay as a csection can be) but the aftercare ruined all my memories of it
In my experience the NCT played a very large part in the unrealistic expectations of childbirth. I had 2 caesareans and felt my experience would be really useful as an NCT teacher. I was regularly told I was 'too posh to push' by my fellow students, none of whom I think could have pushed out a transverse baby! The final straw was being told I had no right to be there as I had never experienced a contraction.
The NCT encourages a culture of competitive childbirth where the aim is to have your baby with no pain relief listening to whalesong and then breastfeed them until they are 5. Anyone who didn't was made to feel a failure