CS 2nd time around?

I can't stress enough how important it is to have a good specialist who is on the same page as you with what you want and to be informed about your choices.
My friend was pressured into a VBAC against her wishes, she was at the mercy of the public system and on-call OB staff and knew nothing about having a VB at all let alone a VBAC as her only previous birth experience was an elective section for malpresenting twins.
I tried to push the duty reg for an elective as that's what my friend was most comfortable with, but the duty OB decided it would be a "difficult section" as she is a larger lady, in other words he couldn't be bothered. (I know most of the OB's working out of ACH and she got one of the very average ones, most of them are brilliant).
She ended up being induced with the gel which increases the risk of uterine rupture, then had synto which again increases the risk, baby's heart was having prologed decels after contractions. The pushing stage took more than two hours during which time the decels got longer and more frequent, the duty reg was called to prep for an assisted (ventouse) delivery but got held up and baby was eventually pushed out a few minutes before the reg finally arrived. Baby's apgars were 1, 3 and 5, he was born not breathing and had to be resucitated and had a badly misshapen head due to the prolonged pushing stage. Then the placenta got stuck and had to be manually removed more than an hour after baby was delivered. The whole thing was an absolute shambles, I was traumatised enough just being the support person, let alone my poor friend who actually experienced it!

If she had been well informed (not to be mean but she's not that bright so needed things to be explained very clearly) and had a decent OB to oversee things she could have had an elective c-sect which would have been far less traumatic for her, and for baby, and if she had trialled a labour they could have intervened earlier and done a section to save her going thru so much pain and baby's lungs being so compromised.

I too had an emergency C-Section first time round, after 15 hours of labour, and boy pretty much anything that could go wrong did go wrong during my labour. When it came time to start pushing, they realised that my pelvis was too small to get a baby through it, so hence the need for the emergency c-section. I was pretty out of it for this, and it freaked me out no end, enough to say that I didn't want to have anymore children afterwards. I ended up three weeks later back in hospital with cellulitis in my wound on intravenous antibiotics for 3 days, so this really topped it off nicely. But now on a much nicer note, I did change my mind on having another child - but it took me 4 years to make this decision, and I'm so glad that I did. I had to have an elective C-Section this time round, due to the fact of having a small pelvis and being told that this would be the only way I could ever deliver, so I got myself an awesome Specialist, they booked me in two weeks prior to my due date (which apparently is normal), everything went perfect, I remember it all, and it was such a breeze - a wonderful experience - we were even having a few laughs during delivery, and it hardly took long at all. I had to have a Spinal Tap for this rather than an epidural this time, this leaves your legs feeling numb, but they come right pretty quickly afterwards. I was up and walking round the next morning (I had a 4pm delivery the day before), so nothing like my first time round. I even asked the Specialist how many C-Sections you were allowed to have, she told me 4, so as you can see, I was definitely thinking that having another child in exactly the same way would be fantastic. So I would definitely recommend an Elective - no doubt in my mind at all. Just make sure you get a reputable Specialist, that's all I can say. I am delighted to be blessed with two wonderful boys now.

Edited by Duchess

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