Cancer scandal reminds us women should be told truth – even the bad stuff
SO there you are, going off to have your first baby, and preparing yourself as best you can. You read a few books, attend your antenatal classes, pack your overnight bag and head for the hospital, hoping for the best. Then you get there and are more than a little surprised when things don’t quite go to plan, because, let’s face it, no-one tells you in advance how unpredictable, complicated, and messy childbirth is. You only find out this universal truth afterwards.
The yawning chasm between expectation and reality in the birthing suite is in the news thanks to the controversial comments made by obstetrician Dr Aoife Mullally, who delivers babies at the Coombe and at Portlaoise Hospital. In an address to a medical conference on Friday, Dr Mullally noted that increasing numbers of “over-anxious, middle-class mothers” have unrealistic expectations of “perfect births”.
They are arriving at the hospital equipped with a detailed birth plan that precludes “unnecessary” medical interventions, insisting instead on a natural, drug-free birth. Then they’re going home disappointed and feeling like a failure because things haven’t worked out like that.
These women, suggested Dr Mullally, quoting US obstetrician Amy Teuter, were behaving like “birthzillas” who wanted their birth experiences to be as perfect as their wedding day. Naturally, this raised the hackles of many mums who felt Dr Mullally was being insufficiently sympathetic to their plight. But actually she’s spot on: the gulf between what you are led to expect as a first-time mum and what actually happens on the day is frequently enormous, and difficult to come to terms with even after the birth. I had an elective section with my oldest son, a process which started with us calmly arriving at the hospital at 8am only to descend into near-chaos by 10am when, to everyone’s great surprise, not least the consultant’s, our little boy emerged not breathing or moving, or in the doctor’s chilling phrase: “The baby’s very flat.”
Cue a general air of alarm, with scrubbed-up paediatricians racing into the room and what felt like an eternal silence before our new baby, who we had been told would be handed directly to us for ‘skin-to-skin’ bonding, was instead whisked off to the neonatal intensive care unit. The midwives paused only to allow us a brief touch of his cheek.
He remained in intensive care for several hours, until he was restored to us with no further explanation as to what had actually happened, because to the doctors, it was no big deal – despite the shaky start, thankfully we had a healthy baby – but to us it was terrifying. Would it have helped if I knew in advance that actually, one in 10 babies goes to the NICU? It would. But not once during my antenatal care did anyone mention the fact that actually, what can seem like a terrifying birth complication can be just part and parcel of what medics might consider ‘normal’. It’s understandable that maternity hospitals don’t want to scare the bejaysus out of mothers by listing off all the potential difficulties they might face, but maybe doctors and midwives need to think harder about how they are preparing women for the realities of birth.
I have countless friends who’ve emerged from the labour ward shell-shocked by the trauma of difficult deliveries and suffering with the ongoing pain of birth injuries. The common refrain among these women is always the same: no-one told us this could happen.
If the CervicalCheck scandal has taught us anything in the past week, it’s that women want to be told stuff. Even the bad stuff.
Otherwise, we’re just being treated like babies.
Wiping the smile off parents’ faces
OF course, once the labour ward is behind you, it fast becomes apparent that might have been the easy bit, as you embark on a new life of sleepless nights and endless cleaning up. You soon discover that while once upon a time your idea of luxury was a new handbag or a trip to the spa, now it is an infinite supply of wet wipes, which have fast become your most treasured possession.
Vital in every situation from changing nappies to wiping errant purée spatters off the ceiling, alas, they could soon be a thing of the past after the UK declared that any wipes containing plastic – that’s most of them – will be banned by 2025 as people keep flushing them down the toilet and polluting our seas. How will future generations cope? Will children ever be clean again? Because I’m pretty sure my ceiling won’t.