Recently the author of Momotics, Danielle, and Theresa from HealthyBabyNetwork did a Post Cesarean Feelings Survey. Today Danielle posted the positive feelings for the survey. I personally took the survey and thought it was very well written and enjoyed it. A couple people have said that they feel it was biased.
On to what I was going to write about. There were a couple comments, in my personal opinion, that completely demeaned the feelings of negativity that some mothers had. Call me sensitive if you would like, but some of the mothers with positive feelings seemed to think that just because they had a great experience that means everyone should. Maybe that is generalizing a little too much but when someone makes comments like the "healthy baby " comment, it doesn't get the point across. It just makes woman who have had negative experiences resent what comes out of the mouth of the person who commented. Maternity care needs to get back to caring for the emotional states of woman as well as the health and well being of mom and baby.
For many cesarean mothers they believed they would be having a vaginal birth and that is what they had prepared for. They didn't expect to have major abdominal surgery. They didn't expect to have a more difficult time breastfeeding.(Although that isn't always the case) They didn't expect to have to recover and tend to a incision on the stomach. Woman with traumatic experiences especially, were not expecting to have feelings of anger and grief over their lost birth experiences. It is probably very difficult for woman with a positive experience to understand where this trauma and anger comes from. But please know that those feelings are there and just because you don't understand them doesn't make them any less real.
We as woman need to take time to understand the feelings of each other. A man will never know what it is like to be pregnant, to birth vaginally or by cesarean. As much as the men in our lives love us and try to understand it will never fully click in their minds. They experience something completely different than us. They can go through the trauma and pain just like we do but will never have the same experiences. We need to stand up together and support. If you had a great birth with your section, AWESOME. You are lucky that you enjoyed it and don't feel you were cheated. But please help woman who aren't as lucky. We wish we hadn't had a traumatic experience and that our child's birthday wasn't clouded with those awful feelings of something that we have lost. It is our responsibility to be there for each other. We need to have each other for support because if we can not even support woman through a birth how do we expect to do anything as a society.
I do believe there is a way to have a positive necessary cesarean. There are cases where moms truely need a cesarean and ICAN does have a link for a family centered cesarean. It is possible. Not every cesarean is negative but their are many that are and being supported is the only way to get through the pain of it all!
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