Natural Birth
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Natural Birth and Baby Blues/PPD
After reading a previous post about pregnancy depression, I've started wondering how natural birth vs. intervention/c-s birth affects post partum emotions. My first two births were both highly intervened, and I suffered from severe PPD (was hospitalized with my 2nd child).
Does the type of birth affect your body's post partum emotions in any way? What are your experences with this and natural birth?
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Re: Natural Birth and Baby Blues/PPD
traumatic events at birth can impact BB and PPD. however, that does not mean that women who have ideal (for them) and natural births do not or can not also suffer from BB or PPD.
i had a likely unneccesary surgical birth after 40+ hrs of natural labor at home. i suffered from both BB and PPD after my son's birth. i recall during the BB weeks that much of the despair i felt i correlated to the failed attempt at homebirth and the resulting surgical birth. however, BB is caused by the hormonal changes that happen PP, so most women have some degree of BB. perhaps it is stronger/lasts longer for women who had highly intervened with births or unwanted interventions?
for me, i think my birth experience certainly triggered the PPD. though there were some other factors that had nothing to do wtih the birth, on their own, but were complicated by the surgical birth, and i think, partially contributed to the PPD.
<a href="http://s5.photobucket.com/albums/y161/putalittlepolkainyourdot/?action=view
There are two reasons why I had a hard time emotionally with my birth. One was because I wasn't prepared for the pain. I constantly surrounded myself with extremely positive natural birth stories and watched videos of women giving birth without barely making a peep and had a big smile on their face during in transition. So I was completely convinced I would have a beautiful, easy, peaceful birth. When the pain really hit me, I felt like I was drowning, completely out of control, and totally helpless. I also felt like I was on display with everyone else around me fully clothed (I was in the tub with just a bra on) just looking at me (or that's how it felt). I am a very strong person and am always in control of whatever situation I'm in, so the helpless out of control feeling was pretty hard to accept.
The other reason is because after my MW broke my water (bulging bag of water was keeping me from dilating) DS turned and that caused his heart rate to drop so low it almost disappeared. My MW's were pretty frantic putting me into different positions to try to get his heart rate to go back up, and at one point one of them yelled in my ear, "we need to get this baby out NOW!" His heart rate eventually went back up and stayed nice and strong for the duration of my pushing, but that moment scared me so much that I had flashbacks, and couldn't sleep for months because of it.
All in all, the birth of my son although it was the hardest thing physically and emotionally I have ever done, I wouldn't change it. It pushed me to limits I didn't know I could handle. I know I'm stronger because of it. I know my son's heart rate dropped because he was turning, not because he was in danger. This time I will be doing the hypnobabies home study course to prepare for the pain and let go of any residual fear I have about birth. I am actually excited about this birth!
This.
DD #1 passed away in January 2011 at 14 days old due to congenital heart disease
DD#2 lost in January 2012 at 23 weeks due to anhydramnios caused by a placental abruption
I have had great natural birth experiences and have still gotten BB. It is just a really emotional and hard time. That being said, I can only imagine I'd be feeling much worse if I had had a negative birth experience. I already feel sorry for myself. If I had had to have surgery, I would feel REALLY sorry for myself.
Here's a good little article from my local newspaper this week on preventing PPD/BB:
https://www2.dailyprogress.com/lifestyles/cdp-lifestyles/2010/jul/25/help-prevent-postpartum-depression-nurturing-new-m-ar-354693/
I had a really great birth and was surprised that after a few days, I felt like I had BB. I thought it was just the fatigue. Then I realized it was recovering from delivery, fatigue, breastfeeding, fatigue, and those wonderful hormones. I cried every day, many times for no reason, lots of times just because I couldn't control it. And that first growth spurt at 9 days was AWFUL! I felt like a failure, that I couldn't make my child stop crying even though I was constantly feeding him.
I also had to come to terms with the fact that I'd had an episiotomy. I really didn't expect to be as upset about it as I was, and I have finally (10 weeks later) realized that it's because it was done without my permission, or even without telling me "Hey, this is necessary". My Bradley teacher told me it was ok to grieve about that, and that really helped. Getting over that took longer than the BB, which I had for about 2 weeks, maybe a little longer.
I really think that for myself, going natural helped facilitate a faster emotional recovery than if I'd had interventions such as an epi.
Here's a link to my birth story. I tried to be detailed about my emotions during birth.
https://community.thebump.com/cs/ks/forums/38337836/ShowThread.aspx#38337836