Why I Hate The Phrase Too Posh To Push

The phrase too posh to push is regularly banded about when people talk about c-sections and being pregnant with my 3rd child and now having a baby bump I am now hearing more and more

Folks say “oh well at least you will know when you’re having baby” like its some kind of consolation that I won’t be birthing my baby as I should. 

After reading an article on the Huffington Post recently about The Secret Birth Shaming Of Mothers it seems I was not alone in picking up on this when I had my first section 15 years ago.

I spent many years after the birth of my first child feeling like I had failed as a women and as a Mum, after 2 days in slow labour followed by 17 hours in labour resulted in a distressed baby and reduced vital signs … and a subsequent emergency section. 

For the duration of the pregnancy I had known what I wanted, had written my birthing plan and was set on what would or wouldn’t happen …. The emotional distress the emergency section caused ran deep and the guilt of bringing my daughter into the world by medical intervention really hurt me. 

Fast forward to pregnancy number two a whole 10 years later, surrounded with stress throughout and complications there was no doubt that an elective section was the only option on the cards for me and although I spent a long time feeling like once again I was not going to have a real birthing experience. 

Yet my elective section was the most wonderful experience, I was able to have skin to skin immediately and even breastfed within minutes of being taken into recovery, at no point did I feel I had not birthed my baby properly, nor did I feel my birth experience was a shame in any way ….

I endured months of post surgery pain and I would not have had it any other way. 

Well with this third pregnancy all I can hope for is that my elective section is just as special as the last one and I for one will not be feeling guilty in any way about the way my baby is birthed … and for those that think sections are easy … You have obviously never had any, major abdominal surgery as it is never an ‘easy’ or ‘convenient’ way of birthing, for me my previous 2 sections led me to have to have further abdominal surgery years after and have even had pain and numbness from my scar for the last 15 years.

No Mother should ever be made to feel that medical intervention in labour is less than birthing their child ‘naturally’ as Mum’s we naturally always question ourselves, why would we make another Mum feel less of a Mum through choices that were made in a delivery room above and beyond their control.