For centuries women have covered up their shocking stories of the natal front line, partly I suspect because they didn’t want to terrify the next wave by mentioning incontinence, ruptures and tears. But now the system has slipped from Victorian to medieval. If we want the next generation of women to consider having children, we need to speak out.
This has been delibedrate policy. The madwives insist upon “natural” birth. That is, medieval. Even, pre-medieval.
Pain is good and eat up your placenta!
My mother insisted that birth was a piece of cake it was pregnancy that was awful.
My wife agrees. So there’s some N = 2 science for you.
“The madwives insist upon “natural” birth”
And it is the midwives, not the broader health profession.
Farcical scenes when my wife was giving birth to one of ours; all sorts of complications, mother and baby at risk, the doctor decided they needed a caesarean to get it out quickly; midwife insisting a natural birth was the proper way. Ended up with wife on a trolley, porter trying to wheel her down to the operating theatre, while the midwife is kneeling front of the trolley, her head between my wife’s legs, yelling that she could see the baby’s head.
Ended up with the most unnatural “natural” birth, with a dozen various health professionals in the room, including one starting an awkward conversation with me which (in retrospect) I think was leading up to “which of them do you want us to try to save”, and one lawyer-type doing nothing but taking notes of absolutely everything, presumably because they were terrified of being sued.
The dear old NHS at its most ridiculous.
Richard – our first one went exactly like that, it’d be Carry On stuff if my wife hadn’t been in danger of dying.
“Pain is good and eat up your placenta!”. Seems to be an excess of cake and eating it today…
Interesting that there was also a truly awful story about NHS obstetrics in yesterday’s Telegraph.
Is there perhaps some sort of organised campaign going on?
Little known true fact that the chainsaw was invented to assist in difficult childbirth. I leave it to you all to google.
My wife had identical twins whose umbilical cords were so entwined that the surgeon took a photo to send to The Lancet because he was amazed that they were born OK.
(They’d been trying a natural birth for 36 hours before going for the ’emergency’ Caesarian when I finally asked what the fuck was going on.)
They (my girls) were also found to have divided at almost the final moment before becoming conjoined. I still come out in cold sweats thinking about that. Nature can be a cunt.
As for RichardT and Steve, so for us. I came out of the hospital wanting to beat ageing hippy knowall bitches to death, and hug any bloke in a white coat who understood complicated machinery.
Sam Vara said:
“so for us. I came out of the hospital wanting to beat ageing hippy knowall bitches to death, and hug any bloke in a white coat who understood complicated machinery”
We’re in rural parts, so it was a bog-Irish midwife in our case, rather than a hippy. Ended up with the same problem, but probably a slightly less irritating manner.
And the “bloke in a white coat” who wanted to get cracking on the surgery was actually a lass, so there wasn’t even any “fighting against the patriarchy” involved (although I gather that’s a common justification from the hippy type of midwife).
Steve, Sam, glad yours got through it too. Only amusing in retrospect and thankfulness for the right result.
Thanks RichardT, yes, all’s well that ends well , although the whole bloody birthing process is gruelling.
That particular little one delivered on that occasion is now in his thirties and doing well in private equity, earning more than I ever did.
When I compare the outcomes of my daughters’ friends who have already reproduced on the NHS with my working in a referral hospital (ie problematic pregnancies and deliveries)descending into the third world, the rate of avoidable injuries in the UK is horrendous. The midwitches are an abomination and prefer tears to performing a neat,easily fixable episiotomy. Few seem to recognise fetal early distress and would rather keep a patient than acknowledge a particular birth is beyond their simple skills.
When my wife got to about a week after due date they decided to induce and started at 7am. By about 12:30 no signs of a natural birth happening so no debate, C-Section and son born just before 1pm and all went well.
Bear in mind this was the RAF hospital at Akrotiri and the working day for troops in Cyprus was 7am to 1:30pm, hence the start and finish times, it was mid September and I reckon the Obstetrics team wanted to spend the afternoon on the beach.
We lived in Platres at the time and we had to be careful children were born on the SBAs so my wife had been in hospital about 10 days hanging around and there’s no way she was going to object to the C Section.
Most actual doctors refer to them as “Midwitches” (the ‘t’ is optional).
There was a doctor who had a very good blog about 15 maybe more years ago and he referred to them as “madwives”.
BiND, our shambles (nearly literally) was in Dorchester; sounds like you were lucky to be in Cyprus.
Richard,
Over the years I’ve been quite impressed with Dorchester hospital although that was mostly outpatients and day surgery. That said I had to spend a couple of nights on a medical ward last year and that wasn’t as impressive, mostly because the overworked staff couldn’t respond to alarms as needed.
But I was more impressed than I was with the Winterbourne Hospital. I had a lump removed privately and to say they were inefficient and incompetent is being polite. At one stage they lost my notes just before the procedure and it was like the Keystone Kops with staff running around looking for them. In the end they had to delay the procedure while the Consultant went through the whole consultation process again before I could sign new forms.
If you let women run anything, it turns to sh*t. Our forefathers knew this, which is why they invented the patriarchy, to save women (and everyone else) from other women.
RichardT – thank you, and likewise – I’m glad you all made it through safely, thank God.
Life as a Dad is very much an AD (Age of Dad) /BC (Before Copulation) thing, is it not?
You’re not exactly the same man you were before, you can never be him again. But it’s a wonderful thing. All the sacrifices worth it when you’re solemnly presented with the exclusive “World’s Best Dad” coffee mug.