QUESTION: My husband and I have a
13-month-old daughter and we would like to begin trying to conceive.
I am excited about having another child but I'm really frightened
of having another horrible birth experience. With my first baby I
was in labor for more than a day, failed to progress beyond five centimeters,
and my baby's heartbeat was lost for five minutes. We ended up having
an emergency cesarean. I felt cheated of a normal birth. I am worried
that a horrible mishap will occur next time. Is there anything I can
do to prevent having another truamatic birth experience?
ANSWER: Childbirth is an extraordinary
experience, despite it's commonality. It is inevitable that trauma
associated with the birth of your first child colors your expectations
of the next delivery.
Keep in mind that your body had never completed a
pregnancy or given birth before you had your daughter. Even though
you experienced "failure to progress", your cervix did in fact progress
to dilate to five centimeters. You were half way to full dilation!
Begin to think about the success of this, instead of the failure to
complete the process vaginally. A possible reason for your daughter's
drop in heartrate may have included compression of the cord. In addition,
a slightly slanted head presentation could have slowed dilation at
the same time.
Though a slightly misaligned head presentation is
not unusual in a first labor, it is not likely that it will occur
again or at the same level of difficulty the next time because your
daughter has literally made headway for the next child! Even though
she did not come through vaginally, your body stretched in the pregnancy
and you have already experienced dilating to five centimeters. There
is much more flexibility in your body due to this reality.
Your body does learn from previous experience and
may in fact be better sensitized to respond to the hormones of labor
the next time around. In addition, if your daughter's heartbeat did
drop, due to cord compression, this event is not likely to recur in
a second labor. Or if the labor was arduous, causing some difficulty
for her does not mean that a second labor would not proceed more quickly
for your next baby, and that a second child would not already be positioned
heading straight down because of the inner stretchability already
described.
Second childbirth is overall statistically much smoother
than the first! Clearly this is because pregnancy and labor are not
completely new experiences to your body. Even though you experienced
a cesarean for your daughter's birth, your body has also experienced
a very good part of labor!
Check with your obstetrician to secure information
to understand your past experience. This will help you make sense
of the trauma in the context of what you are reading here. Find out
why this labor and birth may have been difficult so that you can begin
to visualize how it could proceed more smoothly the next time around!
Without this knowledge, you will be left only with the imprint of
the past, which will continue to charge your expectations and your
response to your next labor negatively.
It is natural to feel sad or angry at not having had
the childbirth you had planned. Grieving the loss of a positive birthing
experience does not diminish your love, attachment or gratitude for
your daughter's well being. Our society does not support or understand
the meaning of childbirth to a woman's life and development and commonly
devalues the experience and women's need to work through trauma when
it does occur in childbirth.
The anxiety for your daughter's life that surrounded
your childbirth has naturally left you with feelings of fear and trepidation
for the next time. In addition to the steps outlined above, it will
be extremely helpful to use visualization and other techniques to
heal the past through releasing shock and trauma from your first delivery,
making way for emotional preparation that includes the possibility
of a normal and uncomplicated childbirth.
At the moment you are primed for trauma in birth.
It will take some processing to recover your ability to relax and
cope with the next labor effectively. Read my book, "An Easier Childbirth:
A Mother's Guide to Birthing Normally". Work through the exercises
to help you prepare emotionally for meeting your next labor from a
place of inner strength and increased serenity rather than fear and
reactivity. You have undergone a valiant, but traumatic experience
with your first child. Seek support of other mothers (Vaginal birth
after Cesarean groups and books on VBAC) that offer compassion for
your experience as well as true stories of people who have given birth
vaginally following a traumatic labor ending in cesarean.
You are not alone. And your experience is not a sign
that your body will not respond to your next labor differently. Labor
is mother and child working together in the best way possible to spring
forth life! Perhaps your body "knew" enough to hold back on dilation
because the cord was being compressed. This would be a sign of great
body wisdom in holding back, rather than "failure to progress" in
your last childbirth! Become curious about the ways your body did
work in the last childbirth, and take your emotional preparation for
your next labor seriously. And remember that when all is said and
done, childbearing remains a miracle, and a mystery despite all we
know.
