Non-natural birth & immediate bonding - Page 5

[RedOakMomma]

Originally Posted by CherryBomb

I think when women spend their whole pregnancies hearing that they MUST give birth a certain way to be a "real" mother and a "real" woman, THAT'S what causes problems.

I agree with this whole-heartedly. I think this perception is especially common among the AP community, even if people don't say it outright. It's a shame.


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[CherryBomb]

And you know, what about teenage girls that give birth unassisted and then kill their babies and hide their bodies in dumpsters? Obviously having a "natural" birth didn't cause them to have this magical, immediate, perfect bonding with their babies.

[Hatteras Gal]

I think too many women, especially on this board, put way too much stock in what kind of birth they had/are going to have. I don't think the way I birthed my children has anything to do with how I bonded with them. I had 2 c/s and there was no problem with bonding or with how easy it was to parent. The bonding happened before the birth for me. It mattered not one bit how they came out.

[Masel]

Originally Posted by amberskyfire

That is very interesting! Thanks for sharing your experience

Did you know about gentle parenting techniques before you adopted?

Our home study required us to examine the discipline methods used on DH and me as children and how we planned to parent. We also had to sign a contract saying we would not use corporal punishment. As far as attachment parenting goes the adoption community seems much more aware of attachment issues than the general public. We had tons of family support and have a lot of crunchy friends. I didn't hear the term "gentle parenting" until relatively recently but we were on that path.

Five years ago when we were waiting for DD1 this site alienated me terribly. Biology of birth and breastfeeding seemed to be the be all of parenting. I am so glad since the reboot a couple years ago that we can talk about other aspects of being a mother. It wasn't just a birth that made me a mom or the judge who finalized the adoption.

[felix23]

Can we all agree that non-natural birth doesn't = difficulty being a mother and natural birth doesn't = ease being a mother? Because the title of this thread is non-natural birth = difficulty being a mother and the answer is a huge NO.

Sometimes the birth experience can cause difficulty with mothering, but that includes both natural and non-natural births. I agree with zoebird that whether or not the birth impacts mothering is up to the individual, but a negative impact can happen with a natural birth too. It is not saved for just non-natural births.

[AllyRae]

Originally Posted by CherryBomb

I think when women spend their whole pregnancies hearing that they MUST give birth a certain way to be a "real" mother and a "real" woman, THAT'S what causes problems. I never felt bad about my first c/s until other people told me I should. I take responsibility for allowing people to influence me like that, but it's hard to ignore that when you're young (I was only 18 when I had dd1) and trying to figure out how to parent and where you fit in.

Exactly. And then mothers who have c-sections are told that they didn't really give birth to their child (sorry to break it to you but the *only* child I didn't birth was the one I adopted...my c-section birth was still a birth). Of COURSE if someone is mentally beaten down by being told they aren't a real woman and that they didn't birth their child--the doctor did...of *course* problems with mothering can happen. It's sad what women will do to eachother. It takes a village...and in that village we should all be supporting eachother on the mothering journey--not deciding that one can only be a good mother if they follow a certain path. All three of my children are parented by me the same...the one I birthed vaginally, the one I adopted, and the one I birthed by c-section.

[Joyster]

Originally Posted by chinaKat

Good for you. Threads like this make it hard, sometimes, though.

I totally get that the culture of this forum is pro-natural childbirth. I'm as pro-natural childbirth as it gets. But not to the point where I think it's okay to post threads implying that you can't be a good mom if you don't have one.

And if anybody thinks that's not what's going on here, please refer to the title of the thread.

A couple of years ago, I might have read this thread and felt really bad about myself. Maybe I'm just too tired or too grumpy to care anymore how the details of my birth affect me in the here and now. All I know is that I have two happy, healthy, bright well loved little boys, who make me smile everyday and so far my approval rating with my constituency is running high (I made pancakes this morning )

I also was thinking of how my mother parented and what I've learned from her. She smoked and drank with me in the womb. She had an epidural. I was formula fed right from the get go. She was a chain smoker. My diet was highly processed, endless TV and I was left unsupervised big time. I didn't have a regular doctor til I was 12 Some folks here would look at this picture and would be chomping at the bit to call CPS.

What's untold was, that my mom and I lived well below the poverty level. She was raised in an abusive, neglectful home. My father was abusive to her. I was born at a time where the affects of smoking while pregnant/with kids was just coming out and largely available to middle/upper classes. My mom was exhausted, because she worked endlessly as a waitress to support us and we lived in the inner city community. I've never in a day in my life ever doubted her love, she never hit me, took a lot of crap from my father on my account, she catered to my every emotional need, she worked hard and strived to give me what little she could and I would have died were I separated from her.

Does it make her a lousier mother than someone else who is 100% crunchy? I don't think so, she did the best with what information and resources she had. She parented differently, that is for sure, and I do lots of things WAY differently than her, but I have money, time, resources, a supportive husband, education and her foundation of love, support and attachment.

It's just so easy to judge whether someone is a good or better parent or how easy it is to parent based on a few arbitrary things (and sadly, I see it all the time here, I don't usually engage though), but I think that line of thinking is too simple. Maybe it's my background in social work, or my core beliefs, but there is usually way more to the story.

[MegBoz]

Haven't read all the replies, but,

Originally Posted by amberskyfire

Most moms don't know anything about CIO. They take all of this bad advice maybe because they had this experience in the hospital and they don't know where to turn, so they hear what the authority tells them and they believe it, which can lead to these parenting practices.

Emphasis mine.
THIS is the issue... blindly trusting any authority! Just look at the Milgram experiments. Look it up.
(I think that's really what you're getting at here, too.)

That's the problem. A good mama has to think for herself. Failure to think for yourself & use your brain as well as using your instincts rarely leads to good parenting (or anything good, for that matter.)

[delfin]

It's hard to engage in this conversation without getting into the "birthing competition".
To put my POV, first a disclaimer: I won't speak for the few cases where serious interventions are neccesary and life saving.

I think that a medicalized birth, when there is no need for it, is a link in a chain. It is not the cause for difficulties in mothering, but another symptom, another manifetation of the infantilization of women. Women have been told they are to trust blindly in anybody(a man, often) wearing a uniform.
We are given guidelines to educate our children that have nothing to do with love and connection, and are from the mindset that children are enemies, that they "need to learn who's the boss". Many women go into mothering robotized, without a bit of confidence in themselves. The way a women gives birth is not the cause of this disconnection, since she probably went into pregnancy disconnected, and maybe it comes from way earlier. Since we menstruate we receive messages of using this or that product to "forget we are in 'those'days". I believe is part of the same.
So i believe that there is a link between the birth and the mothering, not always of course. The woman who is experiencing difficulties in mothering is experiencing difficlties with herself first, and inability to hear herself and to mother from a place of altruism
Hope it makes sense. My english is not so good.
I had a planned HB that eneded in transfer. Pitocin, epidural, C section. I kept my baby on me all the time, and I felt sad for the way things turned out.

[Tulafina]

n/m

[kitkatkaddoodle]

I have not read the whole thread because I have a feeling I can guess how it will run. My two cents are that through the history of the world, anesthesia and other "non-natural" interventions that modern women can have were unavailable. That didn't stop poor parenting, infanticide, child abuse, abandonment, or rather iffy bonding. I don't think epidurals and c/s are the root cause of parenting issues.

Besides, even though I labored and delivered without an epidural (though we did have a vacuum assist), my husband felt none of the hormones that flooded my body, and yet he bonded with my son instantly, head over heels, where I loved my son in abstract but took a while to fall in love-love with him specifically. And my not becoming infatuated with him at first look had nothing to do with the birth and more to do with me--I am not someone who falls for anything or anyone all that quickly, though it didn't take him long to wrap me around his tiny tyrannical finger.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by AllyRae

I'm sorry you feel like that was condescending...it wasn't meant to be. I know you don't know me from adam on this board, but for me, there was a lot of truth to the matter. My first birth was horrible. I ended up with PPD afterwards. My second birth was horrifying and tragic and resulted in the death of my son and a huge legal battle and me spending years dealing with PTSD afterwards. A natural homebirth was absolutely out.of.the.question for me. A c-section was my only option after that. When my daughter was about to be born, I had a choice to make...I could choose to be resentful and angry over the fact that her brother's death is resulting in her being born a c-section and feel like my body failed me and therefore I was not worthy of her, or I could accept the fact that she would be born a c-section, work to make it as best an experience as I could, and own that as the beginning to her story. As much as I never never never wanted a c-section and I really wanted that natural birth, I did my best throughout my pregnancy with her to go into it with a positive attitude. If I would have gone into it angry and resentful, I don't know that I could have bonded with her as quickly as we did.

But that's my story. For me, it *was* mind over matter. I could have felt backed into a corner and like a failure and let that affect how I felt about my daughter, or I could work to make it the best experience I could have. Trust me, for a long time, I thought that wouldn't be possible...we wanted to adopt all of our future children (and did adopt one) because I didn't know if I could make a c-section a good experience and the experience of our son's death was so traumatic. But, when we were surprised with Amelia's pregnancy, I had to make a decision as to how I would deal with her birth.

It might not be the same for everyone. But, I do know that for some people, a positive attitude can make a world of difference. Obviously I'm not talking about really traumatic births. Losing a child or almost losing your life is not really something that easily lends to a positive attitude, obviously.

I've done all that, and for many of the same reasons (working to be as positive as I could about my c-sections - the ones I had warning about - as I possibly could, especially my last one, after my son died). It worked...sort of. I still don't think it's as simple as "choosing" to be okay with it. And, oddly enough, the two sections (my third and fifth) that I went into with the best attitude are also the two that have left me with the long-term (possibly permanent) physical damage. "Choosing" to be okay with a lot of this stuff is a very, very long, drawn-out process, which makes the term "choice" a bit iffy, imo. You can choose to work to be okay with something. - you can't choose to be okay with it.

[loveneverfails]

I'm going to agree wholeheartedly with CherryBomb. I think the issue isn't any certain kind of birth, although obviously *trauma* is going to create a factor that can impact bonding for better or for worse, sometimes both. Natural does not mean untraumatic. Medicalized does not mean traumatic. Whether there has been physical or psychological violence done to the mother at any point during the childbearing year is a valid issue for me, although it is impossible to predict how that will impact ease of bonding. For some people, going through a traumatic experience with a specific child will make it easier to hold that child closer. You just can't know.

The thing I hate the most and see as the biggest barrier to maternal bonding is the idea of conditional rights to parenthood, where you only have a right to a baby if X, Y, Z. That goes for being too young, too poor, too old, too single, etc or whatever qualification you need to meet this week. You don't earn motherhood. You don't earn relationships with people. A beautiful baby you are bonded to isn't a reward only deserved by people who have waited until they were 28 years old with a white picket fence and 2 cars and 2 careers, and conceive during the lunar eclipse, and give birth in the forest with a woodchuck as a birth attendant.

[Xavismom]

I also agree, that the 'type' of birth you have, in no way determines your mothering. For two examples (mainly for the OP to read if she's still following this) I'll use myself, and one of the only people I know IRL that did a homebirth.

For my birth, I did have a NCB in a hospital. It pretty much went exactly how I wanted it to go (other than DS needed to be stimulated right after birth, and have his cord cut early) he was out of my arms for less than 2 min. Our hospital was 'baby friendly', so we had immediate skin to skin, breastfeeding within 15 min of birth. DS was never ever taken from me, everything was 'done' with him in my arms.

This being said, while I was totally in love with this little guy, I was TERRIFIED of being a mother. Just completely out of my mind scared about it. I was scared to hold him, change his diaper. I was scared to move his head to position him for breastfeeding. I was scared to change his clothes. Thankfully he has never been a crier, because just his mewling and fussing would scare the bejesus out of me. I could not sleep at all I was so scared he would die if I did. I checked his breathing about every 10 min whenever he slept (and we all know how much newborns sleep omg!!)

DS did have a huge bone bruise on his head, and he had clogged tear ducts. One day about 2 weeks PP, I couldnt get his shirt off easily, and I looked at him with his head bump and crusty eye and I just lost it. I broke down, litterally rolling on the floor and rocking myself like a crazy person bawling about what an awful mom I was and how I was unfit to be a mother. My mom and my DH had NO idea what to do with me.

Thankfully, this bad period ended about a week later, and now I feel like I AM a great mom. But I'm just saying here, I had a beautiful NCB, and I had this happen to me.

Also, for my other example, one girl I know IRL, did a NCB. She had her baby at home. She only breastfed for about 3 months, and went to formula by choice after that, and she does CIO.

But her parents did CIO, and her siblings all do CIO. I dont think CIO has anything to do with birth.

And to further add to that, I dont CIO, and my mom never did CIO with me. So even though I had a hell of a hard time PP, I never even considered CIO an option.

[amberskyfire]

Originally Posted by felix23

Can we all agree that non-natural birth doesn't = difficulty being a mother and natural birth doesn't = ease being a mother? Because the title of this thread is non-natural birth = difficulty being a mother and the answer is a huge NO.

Sometimes the birth experience can cause difficulty with mothering, but that includes both natural and non-natural births. I agree with zoebird that whether or not the birth impacts mothering is up to the individual, but a negative impact can happen with a natural birth too. It is not saved for just non-natural births.

I think you are probably right! Still looking for research, but based on moms in the natural parenting community, they haven't had any problems much of the time.

[Logan's mommy]

I haven't read the whole thread, but I will add my experiences.

With ds1 I was 18, not ready at all to be a parent, knew nothing about the AP aspect of parenting, the thought of bfing grossed me out (no flames please!!), and was terrified to be in pain. So I went into the hospital knowing I was going to get an epidural as soon as I could, which I did. I had gestational diabetes, and ds1's sugar was EXTREMELY low, so I got to hold him for just a few minutes then he was whisked away to the NICU and put on a sugar drip for 3 days. I really felt no connection to him and had a hard time bonding with him and accepting the fact that I was now a mother. I think it had less to do really with interventions and more to do with the fact that I was young and not really ready or excited about becoming a mother.

With ds2 I had been introduced to MDC and all things AP and natural. I was married and wanting another child. I was overjoyed to find out I was pregnant. I knew right away I wanted a natural birth and was going to bf. I also didn't know the sex of ds2 before his birth. He was still born in a hospital because of GD, but he had no complications from it and I got to hold and bond with him for an hour before the nursery took him to clean him up. I had no epidural or drugs of any kind and felt an immidiate bond to him.

I still look back and feel awful for the way I felt about ds1, but I try not to dwell because now I love him and his brother more than life itself and would do anything for them.

[amberskyfire]

Originally Posted by Logan's mommy

I haven't read the whole thread, but I will add my experiences.

With ds1 I was 18, not ready at all to be a parent, knew nothing about the AP aspect of parenting, the thought of bfing grossed me out (no flames please!!), and was terrified to be in pain. So I went into the hospital knowing I was going to get an epidural as soon as I could, which I did. I had gestational diabetes, and ds1's sugar was EXTREMELY low, so I got to hold him for just a few minutes then he was whisked away to the NICU and put on a sugar drip for 3 days. I really felt no connection to him and had a hard time bonding with him and accepting the fact that I was now a mother. I think it had less to do really with interventions and more to do with the fact that I was young and not really ready or excited about becoming a mother.

With ds2 I had been introduced to MDC and all things AP and natural. I was married and wanting another child. I was overjoyed to find out I was pregnant. I knew right away I wanted a natural birth and was going to bf. I also didn't know the sex of ds2 before his birth. He was still born in a hospital because of GD, but he had no complications from it and I got to hold and bond with him for an hour before the nursery took him to clean him up. I had no epidural or drugs of any kind and felt an immidiate bond to him.

I still look back and feel awful for the way I felt about ds1, but I try not to dwell because now I love him and his brother more than life itself and would do anything for them.

So sorry you had a bad experience the first time around My cousin had a similar issue, but didn't have GD. Her son is much older, though, about 20 months, and she still hasn't been able to bond with him. She loves him more than the whole world, but she never really knows how to deal with him or how to take care of him.

She and her husband are talking about having another (I'm not sure why, but my mother says it's because she wants to have her kids young, so maybe she wants to get over the births and early years now) so I'll tell her your story. Maybe it will reassure her that not every experience is going to be the same and she may not have as much trouble with her second.

I'm curious, though. Do you feel that it was a hormonal thing that you had an easier time the second time around, or do you feel as though it had more to do either with having already had a baby or perhaps joining MDC?

[Logan's mommy]

Originally Posted by amberskyfire

So sorry you had a bad experience the first time around My cousin had a similar issue, but didn't have GD. Her son is much older, though, about 20 months, and she still hasn't been able to bond with him. She loves him more than the whole world, but she never really knows how to deal with him or how to take care of him.

She and her husband are talking about having another (I'm not sure why, but my mother says it's because she wants to have her kids young, so maybe she wants to get over the births and early years now) so I'll tell her your story. Maybe it will reassure her that not every experience is going to be the same and she may not have as much trouble with her second.

I'm curious, though. Do you feel that it was a hormonal thing that you had an easier time the second time around, or do you feel as though it had more to do either with having already had a baby or perhaps joining MDC?

I think it may have been a combination of things. Having a child already and knowing what to expect, being married and having the support that was lacking with ds1, and MDC.

I hop whatever your cousin and her dh decide works out for them.

[felix23]

Originally Posted by amberskyfire

I think you are probably right! Still looking for research, but based on moms in the natural parenting community, they haven't had any problems much of the time.

See, I could say the exact same thing about mom's in the mainstream communities I'm involved in, they haven't had any problems much of the time either.

Having a non-natural birth does not automatically cause difficulties being a mother. Period. To say otherwise is extremely insulting to those of us who have had non-natural births and did not have any problems mothering.

[Talula Fairie]

Haven't read the replies, but I have to respond.

I have always doubted this theory, and when I had my third baby it confirmed my suspicions. While epidurals do cause all sorts of issues, they do not, in my experience, cause you to feel any differently about your baby. I felt just as protective over my first two babies as I did over my third. There wasn't one iota of difference. I had an epidural for my first two births but had my third at home naturally.

I understand the reasons behind this theory, but I just don't think it's that simple. Also, while you release oxytocin in labor, you also realease it in smaller amounts while nursing. Even just holding your baby causes some release.