u/Gold_Cow4870

Would love medical staff and patient view in this.

We’re constantly told the UK has a "birth rate crisis" and that we need more babies to support the economy. We are even told that maternity wards close cos people have not enough babies. Or that they borrow staff to other wards as mat unit employees just sit around twiddling their thumbs.

Yet, every maternity unit I’ve seen or heard about is absolutely slammed, understaffed, and operating at breaking point. It's always busy, so many emergencies, midwife's have no time to check on birthing women, ultrasound appointments are cut to bare minimum in comparison with care offered in Europe.

How can we simultaneously have a "lack of babies" to the point where facilities allegedly close from underuse, while the facilities we do see with our own eyes are physically unable to cope with the demand? Is the system just cutting funds and falsely blaming the baby "crisis" as an excuse, or is the "crisis" narrative completely disconnected from the reality on the ground? Or is there a patchwork of places in the UK where there are no babies whilst others are swarming with them? None of it makes too much sense to me.

I'm considering c-section and 2 things that worry me most are adhesions and ab separation.

My abs are super strong cos I work a lot. They have not separated in the slightest. I feel kinda silly getting C-section and tearing them apart on purpose! What is the recovery like? Did you get back to your normal per-pregnancy state? If so. How quickly? I'm 37 so not very young.

And regarding adhesions, my friend had them after C-section and she was in so much pain. Needed a surgery to remove scar tissue. This complication is relatively commo and very unpredictable in impact on ones life. I wonder how common and bad is it? Is there anything I can do to avoid or minimise it?

You can downvote if you like but I've tried reading 2 hypnobirthing books and they are awful. Maybe because I'm an autistic person who works in science and was never into woohoo lala land aromatherapy, homebirth, tea leaves, acupuncture scented candles and reiki scene...

The books are so anti hospital. Use really poor statistics (like that less interventions happen at home... I mean YEAH OBVIOUSLY, that's by design, not some success, that's correlation not causation. It's like saying you are less likely to die in a car crash if you walk, obviously...). They guilt trip women that if they don't have "positive experience", feel or even dare to name things as "pain" or need interventions, they don't breathe right or some other hippy nonsense. Sometimes they even propel blatantly wrong data. Like that home births are safer than hospital births (I mean just look at death rate statistics to debunk it). It feels like the book invents a problem and then sells a solution.

The only legit thing in these books are descriptions of physiological processes of labour and breathing techniques, none of which can be attributed to hypnobirthing itself.

Hey pain is pain! Scented candles are not a pain nrelief method. I'm so tired of the popularity of the anti intellectualism :/

Can we acknowledge that's what's happening in pregnancy, we don't have to rebrand it.

But hey, many women claim it helps them so who am I to argue that... But I think it "works" in the guilt trippy sense.

Assuming you keep on top of pain meds (paracetamol, ibuprofen, codeine, whatever else they give you) what is the recovery pain like, if you were to try to quantify?

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Lots of people say: it wasn't bad or it was managed with pain meds. What does it mean exactly? Would you rate it 5/10 pain non stop, despite the medication ?

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​I’m writing this while waiting in a massive phone queue for the appointments department, and I am seriously panicking.

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​The Background:

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I have tokophobia, and an elective C-section is the only way I can psychologically cope with childbirth. I informed my OB back in March and have reminded my midwife numerous times. They agreed it was fine, but told me the paperwork, consent forms, blood tests, and scheduling are all handled during my 36th week.

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​The Booking Chaos:

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​Original Appointment: Booked with my OB for 23rd of June (my 36th week) all the way back in March. Perfect.

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​Reschedule #1: On Monday I was randomly moved to 3rd of July (start of my 38th week). I called them, they agreed this was way too late to start the process, and miraculously found me a slot for 22nd of June.

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​Reschedule #2 (Today): They just moved my 22nd of June appointment to 20th of July. This is officially way after the baby is due!

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I honestly don't know what to do. The chances of finding another suitable appointment feel minuscule, and even if they do find one, I’m terrified they will just move it again.

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​Has anyone given birth at St. Thomas' or elsewhere in the NHS and experienced this? How do I escalate this so I don't slip through the cracks? Any advice on what to say on the phone right now would be incredibly appreciated! Thank you so much.

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My baby is breech and I'm having a c -section. When I found out, I have to say I felt relieved because I couldn't decide on c-section vs epidural birth as I'm terrified of giving birth. Now fate decided for me. But I'm still super nervous of the pain and recovery of the c-section. I know emergency c-sections are way worse to recover from but it's hard to get data on planned c-sections alone.

Any advice on how to cope and what to do and what to expect, tips? How bad is the pain? How bad is the recovery? Anything I should do ahead of time? I'm giving birth in St. Thomas' in London and heard so many conflicting information.

Note: If you would just mind refraining from saying: "it's just one day, wait until you have the baby!" that really freaked me out more