A few days ago we published an entry in which we talked about assisted caesarean section or natural caesarean section, in which women who had to give birth by caesarean section could have an intervention more similar to a natural birth than the usual caesarean section.
Following that entry, in Facebook, some readers commented that I wish they had had a caesarean section like this, because not giving birth vaginally, having undergone caesarean section, they felt that they had not been mothers, as empty, that they were less. To talk about the subject I ask you: Feeling less mother for having given birth by caesarean section?
Yes, a woman can feel this way
Surely you all have your own opinion. In fact, to the mothers who commented on that, many others responded that they felt nothing less like mothers at all. However, I think it is lawful to feel that way, even for a few days, for a while.
If you ask anyone how human reproduction works, they will answer you (if you know the least), that through intercourse a male sperm fertilizes an ovum of the woman and, after nine months, a baby is born through the vagina.
This is how everything worked for millions of years. However, now the thing is a little more variable. Now fertilization can be done through intercourse, but it can also be done in a laboratory, in vitro, artificially, to then implant that embryo in the mother, or even in another woman, who will not be the mother. Come on, that a couple, nowadays, can have a child without sexual intercourse and without the mother having pregnant the baby.
I speak, of course, of the most extreme cases, when the thing is so complicated that you have to juggle to get a child. Can parents who have a child feel this way less parents? Yes, they may feel that much of the process has been lost, if not the entire process, and they may have that feeling that their baby has not come through them.
Similarly, a woman who gives birth by caesarean section and who expected to have her son "as has been done a lifetime," which is vaginally, may also feel less mother for not having given birth, for not having been her who let her son out and not having been the son who chose to leave. Let's not forget that in a caesarean section you take the baby.
But it shouldn't feel that way
Now, after saying that I consider it normal for a woman to have a certain sense of emptiness because she did not give birth as she dreamed or as, simply expected, I must add that shouldn't feel that way, or at least not for long.
A caesarean section is a major surgical intervention that carries many risks and is undesirable if it can be delivered by normal vaginal delivery. However, in those cases, which there are, in which the birth does not evolve well and / or the life of the baby or the mother can be in danger, Caesarean section is necessary and has saved the lives of many people.
Throughout life and history, births were natural, but many babies and many women died because there was no one who could do anything else, in case of complications. Keep in mind that the first woman who survived a caesarean section was operated in the year 1500. In 1885, 85% of women who had a caesarean section died, or put another way, 15% survived mode would probably have passed away.
By this I mean that caesarean section as an intervention that saves lives and is useful takes nothing with us, two days (or two seconds) if we compare it with history, but thanks to it many lives have been saved.
That is why, because caesarean section is an intervention that must be carried out when there are still greater risks, women should not feel less mother, or empty for a long time. They should, little by little, rationalize the feelings, that emptiness and that bad feeling, which is logical (not all of them live like this, but it is normal for some to feel it that way), and transform it into thoughts and premises that go from the "yes it wasn't for the caesarean section, who knows what would have happened "until" being a mother is much more than giving birth. "
Being a mother is not just giving birth
And I stay in this sentence to focus on it. Being a mother is not just giving birth because many women already feel mothers even before giving birth. Pregnant women, knowing that they are fathering a baby, they already feel like mothers.
Being a mother is not just giving birth, because many women have their children by caesarean section, without giving birth to them vaginally, and make use of all the opportunities to feel mothers: skin with skin, breastfeeding, long time together, warmth, affection and caresses, etc.
Being a mother is not just giving birth, because many women, as I have said, do not gestate their babies, but receive them from other women or receive them for adoption, and from that moment it is their mothers, who will live by and for your children and those that, from that same day, will have the same concerns and responsibilities as those that stop them.
Being a mother is not just giving birth, because men don't give birth, and we are fathers. And it seems that to feel like parents, all we have to do is have sex, leave our sperm there and nine months later we already are, without having done anything. But no, we are clear that being a father is not just that, but being there in pregnancy, being there in childbirth and being there, and especially when the baby is born. Sharing good and bad nights, dark circles, tiredness, crying, arms and time. Playing with our baby, then child, and sharing responsibilities and concerns with our partner.
That is being a mother and that is being a father. How it comes, after all, is the least. And if not, observe your children, some born by caesarean section and others born by natural birth: Are they less children for it? Do they love you more or do they love you less for being born in one way or another?
Photos | Thinkstock
In Babies and more | No, caesarean section is not the best thing for the baby. Is the mother who raises with attachment better? What kind of delivery would you feel most satisfied with?
