My Gentle C-Section
“Oh you’re one of those - There’s nothing gentle about a c-section, we cut you open and tear your abdominal muscles”
“Respectfully, I disagree and hope we can discuss something that will make the whole experience more gentle for myself, my partner, and my baby.”
A direct exchange between a surgeon and myself a few hours before my somewhat elective surgery. With the rise in c-sections globally, I think it’s time we talked about our role as birthing mothers in a surgical birth.
In the UK, the medical system runs very differently from America so bear with me as I explain my experience. Initially, I was planning to have a beautiful home birth equipped with fairy lights, mantras, affirmations and all the wonderful idyllic things you pre-prep before labour starts. I knew the real point of the prep work was to help you go into labour calmly and wasn’t necessarily going to be a direct help during the labour but the preparation would give me a mental toolkit to help calm me and empower me.
My beautiful prep work was much to the amusement of my friend’s husband who mid contraction, feeling helpless, had offered to fetch his wife the wonderful Pinterest worthy affirmation board was met with a very powerful “f**k the f**king board!” Still, I was all loved up and ready for my hygge worthy home birthing pool set up. So there I am labouring, contractions lasting a minute and three minutes apart and we calmly ring the hospital to let them know and to ask for the midwives to come out...
“Oh has nobody rung you to inform you - we’ve cancelled homebirths due to the unknown of this thing called Coronavirus and you will need to come into hospital”
I WAS ALREADY IN THE POOL! This wasn’t part of the plan! At this point, my hypnobirthing affirmations did help as I managed to stay fairly calm. So I get out of the pool and find a positive headspace amongst the chaos and drive to the hospital with my partner and sister. My waters had broken 20 hours before on a walk and my partner and I had decided for personal reasons we would rather have a gentle Caesarean section than being induced and have interventions. I was very well read (how I manage my anxiety) and felt confident in expressing my desires for my birth. When we got to the hospital my labour had predictably stalled and my cervix wanted nothing to do with any type of opening. This was when the induction drip was mentioned and when the battle for my gentle C-section began. I am not anti-medicine by any means so I listened to all of the options being given and felt confident that I would like to stick with my choice of a C-section. After a lot of persuasions, digging deep to find my voice they agreed to a Caesarean section and then A LOT of waiting and power surges later (as my body was not sure whether labour was coming or going with the noise of the hospital and the frequent visitors) we met with the surgeon who was going to be performing my surgery to go through the surgery.
At this point my baby had moved back to back, I was still contracting but not dilating, so discussions were interspersed by breathing breaks but I used that to fuel my voice to advocate for myself. The pre-surgery discussion wasn’t what they had imagined. A scenario where they could just tell the birthing mother what would be happening. The discussion was just that: a discussion…where I took up space and chose things that I also wanted from the experience. I could tell by the eye rolls and the looks exchanged between the medical team that they thought I was just another one of ‘those mums’. Well, I’m glad they thought that because I am proud to be another one of ‘those mums’ who advocates for emotional and mental wellbeing as well as physical health. When we medicalise birth we forget that wellbeing is holistic and birthing mothers have emotional and mental health that also needs to be taken care of. Birth is a monumental experience in one’s life and if you can make modifications to make that experience less traumatic and more akin to the more peaceful experience we all wish for then why wouldn’t someone want that? A gentle C-section by definition is a name for modifications your labour team can make so that your Caesarean feels less clinical and more intimate. Surely this is something given the choice we would all opt for so why is it not more well known? It is obviously still surgery and your physician is not being more gentle as they perform it but the overall experience is more gentle. For me it felt like I was still the labouring woman, I was still the one having the baby, that I was still involved in my baby’s birth and that the experience hadn’t been solely given over to a medical team.
The things you ask for from your gentle C-section will be meaningful and important to you and prep work and discussions prior to the event will allow you to be stronger in fighting for what you would like.
These were the things I asked for:
The lights around the operating theatre to be dimmed and only the main surgical lights to be directly on over us to create a less clinical atmosphere
EKG monitors to be placed on my back
For our music to be playing
For the delivery room to be quiet and hushed voices to be used
For my baby to be delivered slowly as I contracted so that the baby’s body is squeezed in a manner similar to the contractions in order to get that extra fluid from the lungs.
For my baby to be put straight onto my chest for skin to skin
For cord clamping to be delayed
For breastfeeding to be initiated straight away
For golden hour to be respected
All of these things my partner and I had discussed before and I had visualized both my gentle c-section and my home birth so that I felt familiar with multiple scenarios. I would highly recommend The Positive Birth Book by Milli Hill and Your Baby, Your Birth by Hollie De Cruz to help with this. I truly felt like I knew birth inside out after I had read these. Reading combined with listening to other people’s experiences of lots of different types of birth stood me in good stead when it came to advocating for myself and facing some resistance. I felt empowered and strong. I felt so connected to my daughter’s birth in the last trimester and as someone who is very susceptible to bouts of depression and anxiety, I really felt like the preparation allowed me to process how my birthing experience panned out. We do live in a society when Caesarean births can be seen as a failure. Hypnobirthing despite all of its wonderful intentions can leave you feeling that if you don’t breathe your baby out naturally then you have failed. Understanding birth and advocating for myself in all scenarios really helped to combat those negative connotations of a C-section.
My beautiful girl was born via a gentle C-section, she let out an almighty first cry and was placed on my chest where she nestled in straight away and was so quiet and content. Everybody in the operating theatre commented on the experience and remarked how beautiful it was and how moved they were. Even the surgeon who was initially so reluctant beamed and said that it was one of his favorite births.
As women we know our bodies, we know our hearts, we know our mental and emotional health and with that knowledge, we are empowered to make decisions that are right for us.
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