Did I Really Give Birth?

Beth Kitt, a midwife and mum of four found herself being asked a difficult question by a good friend of hers that truly upset her to the core. She found it so powerful that she took the topic to her socials, which is where I, as your editor Sevim, read it – and it totally touched my soul. It’s a question that I also ask very frequently and thought that every mother that’s been through a C-section needs to hear. Over to Beth...

“Do you feel like you didn’t really give birth because you had a caesarean?”.

This is a genuine question that one of my friends was asked recently. She called me, almost too stunned to express how she felt about it. But I could tell she was hurt. Hurt that someone could even consider this.

I’ll be honest, when she told me it caught me off guard. I was shocked that this would even cross someone’s mind.

“I did give birth, didn’t I?”.

She’d called me because not only am I her friend, I am a midwife.

Without hesitation, I responded, “Absolutely! Of course, you did.”

She’d had a vaginal birth for her first baby, a “beautiful and calm water birth” as she had described it. She’d always told me how empowered she had felt after it, and how proud she was of her body.

When her second baby arrived a few years later, she’d had a caesarean. An emergency unplanned one. Her little boy was very poorly and quick decisions needed to be made in order to help him arrive safely into the world.

So, was her second birth any less than her first? Of course not. Did she still give birth? Absolutely!

“You should be immensely proud of yourself and your body. You went through emergency surgery to ensure that your little boy arrived safely into the world. You made a choice in that emergency situation that helped to ensure a positive outcome. You are incredible.”.

The definition of birth is “to produce a baby from your body”.

“Birth is to produce a baby from your body!” Let’s shout it loud for all to hear. This definition is something that we need to remind all those caesarean mothers and anyone who doubts whether a caesarean still counts as birth.

For anyone to feel like they didn’t give birth or that their birth was any less than someone else’s is truly heart breaking. To feel like they ‘failed’ because their baby arrived via their abdomen instead of their vagina is a feeling that I want no mother to feel.

Regardless of how your baby entered the world, your body very much played an active role in the birth.

You grew your baby for nine months. Your body went through so many changes for your baby.

Your body worked hard to recover while caring for a baby. Your baby was physically born out of your body – so absolutely, yes, you still gave birth.

It is so incredible what our bodies are capable of.

How hypnobirthing can help

Hypnobirthing is one of the ways you can prepare for all the things birth might throw at you. Beth is founder of The Bump to Baby Chapter, one of the UK’s leading midwife-developed hypnobirthing and antenatal resources. She saw a gap in the market for hypnobirthing that could be used in all types of birth.

Beth wanted women to have tools and techniques to keep calm and in control regardless of if they are having an emergency caesarean or a water birth, an induction or spontaneous labour, in a consultant-led or midwife-led unit, or having a home birth. She wanted women to have knowledge of all pain relief, from breathing techniques to epidurals, and all pregnant women to feel confident and prepared as they approached their due date and to have the resources to hand to have for a positive and empowering birth. Since its launch in 2016, the chapter’s midwife-produced courses have changed the lives of thousands of women all over the world.