Is there anything more upsetting than a traumatic birth?
Not only can it leave you even more physically out-of-whack than normal labour, it can make bonding with your child hard. It can even put you off ever having another child.
But for some mums, tough birth experiences are challenges to be overcome...although they all have very different coping methods...
SHARING
Rhiannon's eldest twin needed open heart surgery, and was put on life support soon after his birth.
And Rhiannon's health wasn't too hot either - she had developed mechanical meninghitis.
But she managed to cope, and she credits moving on with plain, old-fashioned sharing with friends and family.
"We were able to cope through the worst of it all on autopilot, but it was afterwards that things got hard mentally," she told Buzzfeed.
"My coping mechanism was talking to my friends and other mums in similar positions."
BREASTFEEDING
Ellen was alarmed when she started slowly bleeding some four hours after her little boy was born.
She ended up losing a whopping 2.5 litres of blood, and required emergency surgery and a blood transfusion.
"My birth left me feeling like a failture, so I felt it was important for me to 'succeed' at breastfeeding," she said.
"I was mindful that I hadn't had an opportunity to bond with my son immediately after the birth, and breastfeeding seemed a way to make that up to him."
Aww...
BOTTLE-FEEDING
For Sarah, bottle-feeding was just as good a coping strategy as breastfeeding.
Having had fertility issues, Sarah was delighted when she finally had a child. But she was heartbroken when breastfeeding didn't come naturally.
"My body couldn't even grow a baby properly, and to make matters worse, it couldn't feed him either," she said.
"He was so small, even a few sucks would tire him out, and my supply dwindled."
In the end, she turned to the bottle, and hasn't looked back."Overnight our relationship improved drastically. I wasn't so stressed, and he was happier too."
COUNSELLING
Ruth suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after her daughter was born.
"My baby was diagnosed with an incurable disease at my 20-week scan, and I was constantly pressured to have a termination," she revealed.
Shockingly, she was scheduled for a C-section without her consent. In the end, she consented.
"I just wanted to get out of that place," she said. "No one spoke to me or my husband during the operation. When the baby was born, she wasn't breathing."
Three months later, Ruth was emotionally exhausted. "I couldn't sleep. I had flashbacks all the time," she said.
In the end, she decided that there was nothing for it but counselling, and the difference it made was huge.
"Someone was finally listening to me and validating my feelings and experience."
Sadly, Ruth's baby passed away a month later...
KANGAROO-ING it!
Heather's pregnancy was a breeze, which is why she was so shocked by her horrendously difficult labour.
She went from 4 to 10cm in 15 minutes, and had only spent an hour in the hospital by the time her son was born.
Struggling to bond with her baby, she gave kangaroo-style parenting a go.
"To cope, I did skin-to-skin for the first week, breastfed, and barely let the baby out of my sight," she said.
"I fully believe the constant skin-to-skin and breastfeeding have helped. By doing the kangaroo care and nursing him on demand, we reconnected in a way only a mother and child can."
"There is also something powerful about knowing my body is helping my child to thrive even two years later."
HYPNOBIRTHING
After a difficult first birth, Lottie was so riddled with anxiety that her heart was palpitating more or less constantly.
So when she fell pregnant a second time, she turned to alternative therapy.
"I turned to hypnobirthing author and expert Katharine Graves and an independent midwife to calm my fears, plus I had loads of support in doulas and birth workers," she said.
“I went for acupuncture, reflexology, meditation, read through the hypnobirthing hypnosis scripts, and learned how my body really worked."
"In the end, I had a planned home birth with a doula – in a pool with candles and Enya playing! The midwives took a hands-off approach, and I delivered her myself – I felt like I had taken control of my body back!”
ART
After Sarah Jane gave birth to her second child, her placenta didn’t detach properly, causing her to haemorrhage.
She went on to develop severe anxiety, which she had also experienced after the birth of her first child.
“Doing one doodle a day of something positive (or even sad things as long as I had learned from them) helped me focus on life’s little things.”
STUDYING UP
Rebecca developed intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP, a liver disorder) when she was 36 weeks pregnant.
Worried about how her labour would go, she decided to empower herself with knowledge by reading up on exactly what the birth would involve.
“Understanding the actual birth process and being emotionally prepared for it – knowing that active birthing is better than lying flat on your back – all these really empowered me,"she said.
"It was essential for my process to start early in the pregnancy, and not to wait until the last few weeks to do all the preparation. It helped me to feel more in control of what was going on.”
LETTING GO
Laura’s labour with her first son lasted upwards of 50 hours, and resulted in a shoulder dystocia (where the baby’s shoulders are stuck behind the mother’s pelvis after the head has emerged).
While he was delivered, the nerves in his neck were damaged, causing him to have Erb’s palsy, among other complications.
“There’s a lot of focus on your birth when you’re pregnant. A birth plan, where you deliver, how you deliver – that moment you hold your baby. And when it doesn’t happen the way you imagined, I think it feels like a loss. You have to learn to live with it.”
DOING IT AGAIN
Natalie's labour was one long, terrible contraction.
Her child's head got stuck, and when the ventouse didn't work, Natalie was prepped for a C-section.
Eventually, Natalie's little boy was delivered via forceps, but she went on to suffer post-natal depression - and she came close to not having a second child.
But finally, she came around to the idea of procreating again, and her second labour went much more smoothly.
Wonderfully, this has helped her to put her tough first experience well and truly behind her.
“Of course, you feel you’re lucky to have a baby at all so you don’t complain. For my second child, I had a private midwife, and it was a fun Friday night: Two pushes and he was out.
“I had an excellent GP and health visitor, and I went out every day with the baby. Sometimes I went to a PND group too. A positive second birth has left me feeling good about it all.”
