Having a baby is a process in which a woman, her baby and the people who care for the woman actively participate so that everything goes well. And when the delivery is by cesarean section, too.
The great forgotten, for obvious reasons, are the husbands, the couples, who come accompanying the woman to support her in the process and to see their children born. That is why almost no one asks them how they are, or what they have felt. And there is a type of childbirth that affects many greatly: when they do a cesarean section that you did not expect and you are left alone without knowing what happens .
Men also cry … and suffer
You know, we are all very brave and very macho because we have been educated like that, but when entering a hospital, many people have anxiety and even feel as if their knees lose strength. Yes, we men also cry, it would be missing more, and yes, we also suffer .
I confess that the first time a man told me how badly he had gone through the birth of his wife, I was a bit surprised. But if she is the one who gives birth! I thought. The one who has the most right to suffer, complain and cry is she, who is the one who loses control over her delivery and suddenly does not stop, but is “stopped”.
However, I soon understood. I am a nurse . I have seen many things because I worked for a long time in the ambulances of my city, attending emergencies. I’ve seen quite a few things in the hospital, and … well, the fact of caring for people in a state of anxiety and suffering makes you more capable of having courage when you’re in that world, as a patient or companion.
But this work in a health service has not experienced the majority of men, but only a minority. And there are those who cannot bear to get a vaccine, draw blood or simply see a needle, or a procedure that they do not know.
Yes, there are also women like this and they give birth the same way, but men experience it in the third person, and they trust that everything will be fine until someone tells them: “We have to do a cesarean section. Now. Wait here. , please”.
Those minutes that seem like hours
It happened to me with the first one. We were young. She was young. The baby weighed little, was not very big and the pregnancy went perfectly. Nothing made us think that everything would end in caesarean section. And yet that’s how it ended.
“Look, there has been a problem. The baby is having bradycardia, so we suspect that he may have a cord loop. We are going to do a cesarean section now … Wait here, please. Easy …”. And it is enough for a person in a white coat to tell you “calm down” for you to stop being so .
And I got along pretty well, given the case. I was nervous, sure, but I waited patiently. Other men, on the other hand, suffer much more. Fear, anxiety, the uncertainty of not knowing what the real risk is, what the emergency is, if your partner will leave the delivery room with your baby, or only one of the two, or … yes, it sounds exaggerated, it happens very rarely, but it happens. And these things happen in hospitals, which is precisely where they are.
They’re minutes. It is not too long in reality, but enough to suffer for the person with whom one day you decided to share your life and for that little person that you have been waiting for nine months to love unconditionally , even though you have not yet met her.
Enough to start thinking that something is wrong, to think that no one says anything to you and to think that, when he tells you that he wants another baby, you will tell him that you are going to think very hard about it.
And even tears, when you finally see that everything has gone well
Because tears if something goes wrong are logical, but many end up crying when they receive the news that “now you can see your baby for a moment … everything has gone well.” Thanking that person, the ceiling of the room, the God who believes or perhaps not and the stars that must have conjugated for it to happen. And finally to her, for having achieved it, for being as strong as they doubt they are capable of being .
And then the protagonists are them, of course: the mother and the baby . And the parents are left with that contained suffering. Sometimes they tell it, they let it go: “what a bad time I’ve been through.” But sometimes they keep it quiet because they do not feel that it is fair to talk about their suffering, compared to what they may have felt.
And how to help them?
The first, avoiding that the father is left alone, but this is not ours, but the hospitals, which should include in their protocols the accompaniment of couples in case of cesarean section.
And once it has already happened, because counting on them a bit too , if the delivery has been enough to feel scared. What usually helps are two very simple things to do that very few people do: ask and listen . Well, three things really: ask, listen, and don’t judge .
- Asking how he is , how he has experienced it, what he has felt, in case one of those tells you that “uff, I was left alone and did not know what was happening … I had a terrible time”, which can lead to ask a little more: “Do you want to talk about it?”, in case it seems important enough to do so.
- Listen , because if they start to speak, the logical thing and what helps is to listen to what they say to you, not cut them off and do an exercise in understanding and empathy: what we know as active listening.
- Do not judge , which is a summary of what many of us do: make the judgment of “it is not so bad”, “well, but that’s it”, “bah, but it went well, man”, “well I know one that he had a much worse time “and avoid the advice” come on, forget it, that was nothing “, but rather stay with a” well, if there is something I can do for you, tell me, really … and if in Another time you want to talk about it again, you know where I am. “
Because they are the ones who overcome it over time and as they talk about it with family, friends, partner and with their baby. Yes, with him too, because when they pick him up, they hold him gently and finally they look into his eyes and feel his warmth, they say “oh, how bad you have put me through, but how glad I am that you are here.”
Photos | iStock
In Babies and more | The role of the father in childbirth: mother and baby need you, The presence of some parents in childbirth could make the woman feel more pain, Dad, this is how your wife is accompanied in childbirth
