I almost became a caesarean child. Because my mother had in her two pregnancies a so-called placenta praevia: a cake lying in front of the birth canal. With my older brother that inevitably led to a caesarean section – while I somehow managed to put the thing aside. That can only be a girl, that she has managed! “, My parents still like to quote their gynecologist today.
Cesarean section – and everyone is talking
Now I have inherited not only my dick skull, but also the most physical Zipperlein of my mother. That’s why it was always clear to me: Should I become a mother myself, I would deliver by caesarean section. I suppose I was unconsciously aware that I would once have a placenta previa – frankly, without knowing whether this is at all hereditary.
Later, I also heard, as any other woman probably, stories of births – from relatives, friends, acquaintances, strangers – and yes, everything I heard about natural deliveries seemed far more frightening to me than a small cut in the Belly. Day-long labor, ruptured dams, screams of pain, uncontrollable defecation: Lucky that I will have nothing to do with it, I thought on such occasions.
Day-long labor, dam tears, cries of pain, uncontrollable defecation: Lucky that I will have nothing to do with it
One day a good year and a half ago then a positive pregnancy test was in front of me on the edge of the bathtub. Later, with Philip, my partner, I happily sat down to breakfast, calculating what would happen if everything went smoothly. A February baby! “Great, then I’ll do a caesarean section here in the hospital around the corner,” I explained without hesitation.
In the coming weeks and months, we gradually opened our environment. And I made no secret of how I would want to give birth. Not because I found this information particularly important, but only for the sake of completeness. But soon it was “Caesarean section, why that?” the second most frequent sentence that I heard then – right after “How nice, I’m happy for you!”. The latter was always accompanied by a smile, the first by a frown.
Even good friends were suddenly against me
Until then, I did not realize how controversial the way to give birth to a child is discussed in our society. Similar emotional debates revolve around issues such as breastfeeding or vials, family bed or nursery or already the appropriate behavior and proper weight gain of the expectant mother during pregnancy. As a sporty woman, for example, I jogged several times a week until one day before the birth of my son and only gained five kilos. When I reported on my run once on Facebook, I immediately took a few very critical comments. It seems that everyone really has an opinion on these topics. Both women and men and: parents and non-parents!
What if your child later gets bad allergies?
The first time I was hit by a real headwind from a good friend. At that time I was only in the fourth month, we sat in their kitchen and drank coffee. When I told her about the caesarean section, she opened her eyes and held her hands in horror. “I just think that’s the way to go for us … for us …” I said calmly and stroked my stomach – I was prepared for skepticism by now. “But you know how important it is for a child to go through the birth canal, and that otherwise it might get bad allergies?” – “Yes, that may be,” I conceded, “but there are also many risks that a baby is exposed to in a natural birth.”
A natural birth is not exactly safe
I know only two babies who are disabled because they did not get enough oxygen during delivery. Or a colleague had a writing baby for months, because the little one has dislocated a whirl during labor. “I think there is not such a clear wrong and right for the child,” I said. But she was vigorously against it: “Nature will have thought something finally!”
I often saw myself confronting this “nature argument”. And every time I was inclined to say, “Nature has not provided us so much that we all still enjoy benefiting from, always invoking them would stifle any progress.” And in medicine, hardly anyone would want to do without it.
Constant anxiety in pregnancy can not be good either
The more astonished I was when we came to our hospital for a preliminary discussion and the head physician greeted me, even before I had shaken hands with him: “So you want to do a planned cesarean section, can you please explain that to me?” Then he cross-examined me, “Have you ever thought of your child?” to “In other clinics you would be sent to the home psychologist”. The only reason I do not do that is because the experience has shown that a woman who refuses natural birth and is persuaded only to get so many complications that she ends up with a caesarean section.
It was not until I explained to him that as a therapist I had thought carefully about my decision, the doctor was a little milder. He had to stop and ask all this because many patients acted naively and thoughtlessly. “Enlightened” I felt through the conversation, however, not synonymous. “If I was not so self-confident,” I said afterwards to Philipp, “I would not have dared to stick to my decision, and then I would have constant anxiety for a few months before giving birth, which can not be good either.”
From my dog-sitter, who got so angry when she learned about the planned caesarean section on the phone that she finally hung up, to another pregnant woman, who called me “quite selfish”, I could still many report further episodes.
I do not just think it’s a pity, because I can imagine how many other pregnant women are suffering from this pressure. But also because the cesarean section is thus degraded to a second-grade birth. Which of course also the women, who have to deliver so out of a medical need, get. And, caution: Almost every third baby is born in Germany by caesarean section! So should not we stop questioning our self-reliance? “If the mother feels well, the chances are best that the child is well, no matter how it is born,” said a friendly pediatrician by the way.
And then everything came differently than planned
The cesarean section was scheduled for 15 February. Ten days earlier, I woke up at night with a bleeding. At half past one, Philipp and I arrived at the hospital; Of course, my surgeon slept at this time. Instead, we welcomed two young doctors and Hildegard, a midwife with 40 years of experience. And while the doctors were conferring on whether to be able to wait until the morning with the C-section for work-restraints, Hildegard took time for me. “Look,” she told me. “You’re a tall woman, and your sweet son is small and petite.” My experience tells me we can do it without a wound on your stomach, what do you think of it if we just give you a PDA ( epidural anesthesia) to enable painless childbirth, note ed.) and try it together? “At that moment, I felt my son fidget – as if he agreed.
Suddenly full of confidence I followed Hildegard into the delivery room, at 4 o’clock in the morning I got the PDA. I joked with Philip, danced, sang, and heard my baby’s heartbeat over the monitor by the bed. At half past five there were five press swarms, at 6.47, Hildegard said: “There he is, the little man!” She put our son on my chest. I laughed! Since then, a year has passed. I did not regret the decision to give birth naturally. His way to this world was the right one for my son. But I am convinced that a cesarean section would have been different, but by no means the wrong one. It would only be wrong to not trust one’s own intuition.