Oh blimey, I was about to post something here, but in the mean time littleEDfamily has posted almost the opposite, rather anxious about this copy paste now, but heck I've had a glass of wine and it took a while to write!... I've been wondering if I should comment on here as well, I'm afraid I'm being a bit chicken and doing it under a different name to the one I normally use as I'm not happen going public just yet with some of the stuff that has happened to me. First I'd like to be clear that sillywoman wasn't my NCT teacher, I wish she had been though! Our NCT teacher started of the first class by making couples publicly justify their decision not to have a home birth, by the end of the course we'd been told: -Humans are perfectly designed to give birth easily and naturally, just like every other mammal - All doctors were far too keen to perform interventions, best not to let any of them anywhere near you - Interventions are almost always unnecessary and very unpleasant - We should all tell our GPs we wanted home births, even if we didn't, so we'd get more attentions from the midwives - if we still insisted on hospital we could always chicken out in labour. - We could all have the birth we wanted, all we needed was confidence in our bodies' abilities. I didn't buy into everything she said but I went into labour fit, healthy, low risk and completely unafraid. I'd intended to have a home birth second time round if it all went well. I was in a midwife led unit at a hospital , lovely midwives, great room, birthing pool etc. all the confidence in the world. Two days later I'd had an emergency C-section after every intervention in the book, many of which had failed at least once. At our NCT meetup the teacher made it quite clear that she didn't think I had really needed a C-section, I was made to feel like a complete failure. Following the birth I developed PND and a form of PTSD, which I hid from everyone for almost two years as I didn't feel I deserved help and thought that if I told anyone they'd just think I was being pathetic. I lied to the health visitors when they did their PND form, as I knew the honest answers would make them think I had it, but in my mind I didn't deserve that diagnosis or any sympathy that came from it, it was my fault I felt that way and I shouldn't be taking up their time when their were real sick people for them to see. I did finally manage to confide in my husband and have now had proper diagnosis's, am being treated and am very much on the mend. I don't think for a minute that the NCT teacher is completely to blame, but I think it was certainly a contributing factor, as is every comment I hear about how birth is a wonderful, life enhancing, easy, experience. For many this is certainly true and I'm genuinly happy for anyone who's had that experience, but I worry that far from being given scare stories we can have an overly romatacised idea of birth and are then looked down on if we don't live up to it. We are not perfectly designed/ evolved to give birth, we are a careful compromise. We walk upright and have massive brains, because of this (as someone said earlier) we must give birth to our babies while they are still incredibly underdeveloped, our pelvises are only just big enough to get them out and only then if they perform a serious of complicated manouvers in just the right position. We are the only animal that needs help to give birth as our babies need to come out the wrong way round (facing away from the mother). We are designed/evolved so that enough mothers and babies survive all this for the human species to continue, enough - not all. That's not to say that birth in a western country with a hospital just down the road isn't safe, the chances of anything dreadful happening are tiny wherever you choose to give birth, so yes it is very safe, but I get a bit sick of hearing that birth is "easy and natural" if only you aren't afraid. I'm sure for some people fear is an issue, but so is luck and anatomy! In an attempt to get back on topic, I'd agree that more midwife led units in hospitals should be the way to go, I'd support the theory of choosing home births, where an informed decision is made but I wonder how much these cost compared to midwives in hospital? Given the state of the NHS finances I'd rather see spending on midwife units and better continuity of care to benefit everyone than on the giving a lucky few a "wonderful birth experience"
