Chiquitita was born here in Mexico, so I thought I’d share some stories about that experience. (I really need to learn to be more concise – this a long post, so settle in if you have the time and inclination to read on)
I was 3 months pregnant with her when we moved to Mexico, so the first order of the day was to find a good OB/GYN who spoke good English and worked at a good hospital. A doctor was recommended to us and I was very happy with him from the first appointment. I had seen a doctor in Australia before leaving and the doc here repeated all the same advice and antenatal care plans to me as the one at home. I felt confident that the medical care would be of a high standard and was happy that the back-up plan (of travelling back home for a few months to have the baby) would not be needed. The tests, doctor’s appointments and scans were all very similar to what I would have expected in Australia, although my knowledge of having a baby at home is based solely on books, the internet and friends’ stories. Guerita was born in the Middle East so I had no Australian frame of reference. I had that little bit of extra confidence that a second (or third, or fourth) time mother has – I basically knew what to expect from the process. This is a good and a bad thing – the fear of the unknown is replaced by the fear of the unforgettable pain!
A bit of background – Guerita’s birth was a little dramatic. I was induced at 41 weeks and after 18 hours of labour and a failed epidural she was delivered by emergency caesarian section under general anesthetic. This was not an experience I wanted to repeat. When we got here I had all but decided to have an elective caesarian. I’m pretty sure I would have gone this way if the baby had been born in Australia, so I don’t think that being in Mexico really had much effect on that decision. I have read that the caesarian rate here is very high compared to other countries and I know all the arguments both for and against the elective caesarian and VBAC, but in the end it was my personal choice. I can be a bit of a worrier so I wasn’t keen to put myself in a situation that could potentially become an emergency. I guess the fact that we were in a foreign country made me even less keen to tempt fate, so it was quickly decided that I’d be going under the knife.
My pregnancy passed quite easily and with no major incidents. With Guerita I had had an amniocentesis because of a slightly high risk for Down Syndrome result in a blood test. The results were negative for Down Syndrome, but during the ultrasound the doctor discovered she had talipes equinovarius (club feet) which would require treatment and possible surgery after birth. I was stressed for a good part of the pregnancy with her, which also affected my blood pressure. That’s another post for another day, though, back to the Mexican birth! All my tests results were normal with Chiq so I eagerly awaited her arrival. Actually we didn’t know she was a she at that stage, a fact the Mexicans seemed to have trouble understanding. Everyone here finds out the sex of the baby, but we wanted the excitement of a surprise, as we had done with Guerita. I had to repeatedly remind the doctors not to tell me the sex whenever I had a scan, which was every time I visited the OB/GYN as well as the regular anatomy scans with the specialist. I was also told by a few new friends that my OB/GYN was considered both the best in the business in our city, particularly when it comes to Caesarians, and the best looking OB/GYN in town. I was more comforted by the first fact!
One of my trivial concerns when planning for the birth of Chiq was the date she would be born. It’s a strange feeling to be able to potentially choose your baby’s birthday. Obviously I knew there was a chance she would want to come before the date we chose and we were trying to avoid that, but the problem was she was due in the first week of January. According to the doctor the optimum time for an elective caesarian is between 38 and 39 weeks. Mmmm, let’s see that makes it Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve! Not only did I not really want to subject my baby to having their birthday on one of those days, it’s got to be the worst time to go into hospital. So we settled on a date in early January which happened to be the day after my husband’s birthday and only 3 days before my due date. I think I kept my legs crossed all day Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, hoping she would hang in there until I was booked in! Thankfully she did.
This time around I would say that medically, my “birth experience” was a positive one. I was pretty nervous immediately before the surgery and disappointed that my husband would not be allowed to be there for the operation (hospital policy) but the anesthetist was very reassuring and (what a relief) this time the epidural worked like a charm. It is kind of like an out of body experience having surgery when you’re awake. You can feel the pressure but no pain and with the sheet pulled up high to block your view you can only imagine what they are doing when they are pushing and pulling on the other side of that barrier. It seemed to me like they were unpacking my insides in order to get to that baby, which is not the most pleasant image, but maybe not that far off the mark! Anyway, it only took a few minutes before Chiq came out with a gutsy scream and the reassurances of the great team of doctors that she was a healthy baby girl. With normal feet – I kept asking them to double check that! The long and boring part of the operation is sewing everything back up again – it takes so much longer than the delivery. The doctors mostly chatted amongst themselves in Spanish (probably about golf) and given that the pain hadn’t set in yet, I was feeling pretty good, but impatient to be out of there and seeing my husband and now 2 daughters. They gave me a quick cuddle with Chiq before whisking her off for checks, tests etc.
This is where my experience became less than enjoyable, once I moved from the doctor side of the process to the nursing side. There was none of this skin on skin bonding in the delivery room/operating theatre (I don’t know if this is normally allowed in Australia with a caesarian) let alone a chance for a quick go at breastfeeding and I knew I was not going to get any real support for feeding from the nurses. I had been warned that the nurses were not really all that up to date in their views on breastfeeding, so I enlisted the support of my pediatrician who seemed to recognize the benefits and the importance of starting early and not giving water or formula while trying to get it established. When I mentioned to my OB/GYN that I wanted to get started with feeding straight after the baby was born, in the operating theatre if possible, he said “But, your baby will be starving while you are waiting for your milk to come in”. I was a little shocked that he didn’t seem to know about colostrum and how the whole process worked so I knew I was going to have a bit of battle on my hands to stop the nurses giving formula to my “poor starving” baby. Sure enough, despite me, my husband and the pediatrician repeatedly telling the nursery nurses not to give Chiq a bottle, my husband caught them in the act when she was only 2 hours old. They did not even bring her to me in the room for 4 hours after she was born!
The next 2 days were a blur of stress and constant tension between me and the nursery. I had to fight hard to convince them to allow Chiq to room in with me at all times, and even then they would still whisk her away for baths, or tests or god knows what. I knew if I let them keep her in the nursery overnight they would give her a bottle and after struggling early on with the feeding of Guerita it was important to me this time to have the best chance of getting the feeding established well. They only agreed to let her stay in the room overnight with me on the condition that they would call me every 4 hours to make sure she had fed, wet her nappy and was OK. Can you imagine? Of course, Chiq’s schedule didn’t coincide with their ridiculous 4 hourly one, so I spent each night in the hospital being alternatively woken by the baby or the phone. I learnt pretty quickly to just answer yes when they asked me if she’d fed, wee-ed etc so they’d leave me alone. The hardest thing I found about the whole thing with the nursery nurses (or Nursery Nazis as we came to call them) was that they treated me like I had no idea what I was doing and that my opinion or preferences in relation to my own baby were irrelevant. They would only listen to me if I got the pediatrician to tell them for me. I’m not saying that their training was worth nothing or that I know everything there is to know about babies with my vast experience of having 1 baby before (far from it), but my treatment was a lot different from what I imagine I would have had in Australia, where the mother/baby bond seems to be all important and breastfeeding is not only supported but expected.
Needless to say I was very happy to go home from the hospital and be able to get into our own routine. Thankfully, despite the battle to begin with, Chiq has managed to feed very well and still does now. As supportive of breastfeeding as my pediatrician says he is, at our monthly appointment he always asks me if I am “still” breastfeeding Chiq at 8 months (with a slight tone of disbelief) and I know very few Mexican mothers who have fed their babies past 3 months (if at all). I do breastfeed in public because I can’t see why I shouldn’t and part of me is the rebel who says “if you’re uncomfortable with seeing me do this, it’s your problem, not mine”, but it’s not something you see mothers doing often. I know there are often valid and important reasons why people stop breastfeeding so early and I respect that some mothers need or want to make that decision, but I wonder how different it might be if they were given the right support to begin with. Maybe the experiences of mothers who had their babies in countries more accepting of breastfeeding show that they keep going for longer and with more success when they are supported through it.
As I said at the beginning, I’ve never had a baby in Australia, but for obvious reasons I approached the experience with “Australian sensibilities and expectations”, so I was aware of ways in which my experience matched or didn’t match my expectations. If we were to have another baby (a big if!) it would interesting to do it at home, just to complete my comparative study!
And even though I’m not generally going to post photos of the kids on the blog, here’s a little pic of Chiq on Day 1. Babies all look the same, right? Specially in fuzzy photos.
*Bebita – literally means little (female) baby
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What a beautiful bebita she is!
Sounds like quite an experience. Having had two babies in the same Australian hospital, all I can say is yes, they are very supportive of breastfeeding here but like most hospitals I think, there’s lots of conflicting advice. I think its easier as a second time mum to push for what you know is right in terms of feeding your baby. Just think how a first-time mum would have gone in your position – she’d have been lucky to make it out of the hospital breastfeeding!
As for skin – to- skin contact after C/section. I’ve had two as well – but the opposite to your’s – Lily was the elective one (for long involved reasons!), Jasper was for the most part emergency. With Lily I got a quick cuddle just before I was sewn up and then saw her again in recovery where I attempted to breastfeed and it was there that we got some skin-to-skin contact. We got great support afterwards but I still found breastfeeding VERY difficult to begin with. Jasper was a premmie so after the same quick cuddle in the theatre, he was taken to the special care nursery. I felt very different and alone lying in the recovery room without a baby or a husband (David had gone with Jasper). But my experience in breastfeeding Lily made it easier for me to get Jasper out of the hospital 2 weeks later fully breastfed.
I’m not sure breastfeeding would have even been discussed in the hospital if I hadn’t pushed for it. I definitely would have had a lot of trouble as a first time Mum. When Guerita was born I didn’t get a lot of support for getting started with breastfeeding but they didn’t actively hinder the process like in Mexico. I had loads of trouble getting going first time around – all the usual difficulties with positioning and latching on properly and I spent a good part of the first month in agony. I ended up with mastitis that turned into an abcess which was incredibly painful (although part of the reason for this is I didn’t want to take antibiotics as Guerita was just about to have an operation on her feet and I was worried about all that medication in her system). We both ended up in hospital within a week of each other! Despite that experience I was pretty determined to breastfeed, partly because I couldn’t face the thought of sterlising bottles and mucking around with formula. As you said the experience you have from the first baby does make it easier. I still had problems getting Chiq in a good position etc but I felt more confident that I could get through it and work it out in the end.
It must have been hard having Jasper whisked off to special care nursery and scary having a premmie baby. A good friend’s baby was born at 28 weeks. He’s 4 now and absolutely fine but his birth and 3 month hospital stay was a very difficult experience for them.
Thanks for the visit to my blog and I loved reading this about your experience. I had such a good breastfeeding experience in France with my son that I’m wondering how anything else can compare. I had so much free support and help. I haven’t seen many signs that Mexican hospitals/doctors are very supportive of breasttfeeding and I do think that the fact that they told me that they put the newborns in a seperate room from the mother in my particular hospital shows that it will probably be a battle. I won’t be happy if I catch them supplementing with formula. I’m ready for a fight and so is my husband
Good luck with it all, misschris. In the end its only a few days in hospital, but those first few days are so important with breastfeeding, aren’t they? If both you and your husband are determined and ready to stand up for what you want to do, you should be fine. Depending on how good your Spanish is you might want to try and enlist the help of someone who can translate. Not always that easy to do when you’re in a new place, though, I know!
If you had a good breastfeeding experience first time around then you’re really well prepared for the next time, even if you’re getting resistance from the nurses. That experience will be so useful when you’re getting less than perfect support. I don’t regret having Chiq here in Mexico and we managed to get her feeding going well, despite the circumstances. Now I am just dealing with her getting her teeth and trying them out on me!
Hi,
It was great to read about your experience giving birth in Mexico. I’m Swedish but live in Mexico with my husband who’s from here. I’m due with my first beginning of January and extremely nervous about how all these things are going to work out. For me it’s obvious my husband will be there at the birth, that I will have the baby with me as much as possible and that breastfeeding is the best for the baby. Like you say, now we just have to convince the people here of that which will be a battle. We really live in backwater Mexico too. We tried to visit one of the hospitals our doctor suggested but they got offended and were not happy about letting us take a tour. It’s funny how they seem to think you should just be greatful and shutup when in fact you have to pay a small fortune to give birth there. But we’ll try to set it up through our doctor who is well respected around here.
Hi Squirle – I had a similar response from the hospital when I tried to take a tour. They were surprised that I wanted to see the facilities beforehand and although they did take me on a tour, I wasn’t able to see that much. I don’t think they really understood that I just wanted to be prepared to for the birth and feel familiar in my surroundings. It seems that organising things through the doctor is the way to go as the nurses etc will listen them, but not necessarily you. I hope it all goes well for you!