The disappointment that women imagine … when they are pregnant and have had a previous c-section and want a vaginal birth after a cesarean, would do just about anything in order to achieve it but don’t … is huge. The anxiety in pregnant women seeking a VBAC can be extreme.
We want to help you think this disappointment through, take actions as you struggle between hope and fear and achieve an empowered birth experience. We can do that because Birthing Better VBAC online class is full of skills developed in the early 1970s by hundreds of ordinary families many of whom were in your situation.
Learning our VBAC Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation skills is having hundreds of unique families teaching you how they achieved an empowered birth. Keep in mind that while we all have our unique circumstances we share a more profound commonality.
- We all blink, cough and can tighten up our rectum.
- A woman is either pregnant or not.
- One hundred percent of pregnant women will give birth one way or another.
- You got pregnant to have a baby not a ‘type’ of birth.
- You can become skilled to birth your baby no matter where you birth, with whom or what happens to or around you.
Too many women who ‘choose’ a VBAC and end up with another Cesarean feel they’ve failed, experience extreme disappointment, often anger and dissatisfaction. Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation skills are one of the most important actions you can take in order to achieve your desired birth and to have an empowered birth in all circumstances. Birth is partly about YOU and mainly about your baby. When YOU use skills to birth your baby, you commit as a mother and father-to-be to always use your best skills as parents.
Where does all the disappointment come from?
In reality, a huge part of the disappointment comes from how we use the term VBAC. Consider your previous c-section. If your baby’s surgical birth was really essential due to health issues you or your baby faced then you are more likely to accept another Cesarean if that one is necessary as well. On the other hand, if you felt your previous c/s was ‘unnecessary’ and imposed on you, you are much more likely to feel outraged if you end up with another ‘unnecessary’ Caesarean. Yet … you birthed your baby! If you had skills and used them, you would still want a VBAC AND you’d refine your skills and use them while you birth your baby.
Consider the phrase VBAC … or vaginal birth after a Cesarean. Somehow the term ‘labor’ has been left out. In other words, did your necessary or unnecessary Cesarean happen during the labor or vaginal part? For the vast majority of birthing women, their surgical delivery occurred during labor. In other words, you need to get through the hard work of labor in your coming birth in order to get to the vaginal part. Without skills, you are infinitely less able to cope well with the intense natural occurring pain of labor contractions. That’s why Birthing Better families developed these effective skills! We knew we lacked something … it was good skills.
Disappointment comes from not being able to complete the labor in order to get the vaginal birth. That disappointment comes directly from a lack of birth and birth-coaching skills that lead to more medical interventions including a cesarean delivery. Yes, your skills may reduce the need for many of the medical interventions birthing women experience. More importantly, skills permit you to work through your baby’s birth journey no matter the circumstances.
The rise of Caesareans
Most women do not have a Cesarean when their baby is in the vagina. Most have a surgical birth sometime during labor. This means we have to focus on what we are doing during the labor that opens our body so our baby can descend into our vagina.
For the past 40 years, we have put a huge amount of emphasis on Birth Plans … what we ‘want’ and ‘choose’. We have a ‘choice-based’ approach to pregnancy and birth and not a skills-based approach. In other words, your previous birth may very well have centered around your vision of The Birth through your Birth Plan. But there’s no way to know what your birth will be like. Preparing for birth is not just about planning or having positive thoughts. You have to ‘do’ the activity of doing the hard work of coping with the natural occurring pain associated with labor contractions. Become skilled!
Expand your thinking and actions
Realize that giving birth is an activity only you have to do. This means you and your partner need incredibly good birth and birth coaching skills for the simple task of staying on top and in control while you experience painful contractions. If you look stressed and overwhelmed you are much more likely to have more interventions. Your obstetrician or midwife does not want you to suffer.
What you need to do is produce a Skills-based Birth Plans as well as your Conventional Birth Plans. Keep in mind that too often an ‘unnecessary’ Cesarean is caused by the inability to manage the natural pain of labor contractions.
Having skills will lead you to success. You got pregnant to have a baby which means you and your partner can always work with your baby’s efforts to be born. That should be a given but without skills, most families become passive when there medical assessments, monitoring and procedures (called ‘interventions’) and doing that lead to the disconnect that causes the negative emotions such as disappointment.
How our baby is born should not stop us from being skilled at helping our baby’s birth journey. That’s our role as a parent even if how your baby is born is not quite to your liking.
To achieve a successful VBAC, having skills is even more essential. You and your partner must know how to open your body to let your baby come down, through and out. You and your partner absolutely must know how to work through every contraction of labor in order to get that vaginal experience.
Birthing Better skills were developed by moms and dads in the early 1970s in the US and used by many thousands globally in all types of birth. Birthing Better VBAC online birthing class is housed in Common Knowledge Trust.