episiotomy, tear, both or none?

[BeachBum]

Pretty straight forward question. Just wondering what you had.

[Jen1098]

In the middle of pushing Dr. informed he was going to have to give me an episiotomy. Well for whatever reason I thought if I gave a really good push I wouldn't need one. Well he didn't end up needing to give me one b/c I tore on my own. Ended up with a 3rd degree tear.

[KKay]

I had an episiotomy. I was pushing well, but not making any progress. My DD heartrate was starting to drop so the doctor gave me the episiotomy. It turns out the cord was wrapped around her neck. Everything was fine afterwards though. I had no complications from it whatsoever.

[BTB]

TWO tears (different places, one of which threatened the urethra) and then an episiotomy because she still wasn't coming out and her heartrate had dropped.

[mom_to_zoe]

DD was delivered with forceps, so I tore quite a bit, internally and externally, and needed a lot of stitches. My recovery was hard, no question. But I am still grateful to my doc because she really did everything she could to enable me to deliver vaginally.

[jess&dan]

I started to tear in the middle of pushing, very slowly. My doctor said it would be better if we did an episiotomy to avoid a major tear and to make the process a bit quicker. I said okay, and as soon as he did that, Nathan was out. I had no healing issues, very little stitches, and no lasting effects.

[jenn0911]

4th degree tear for DD#1...lots of stitches and sore for a very long time (also stitching was done incorrectly...but that's another story!) Smaller tear for DD#2, different doctor, great job on the stitching!

[Kim]

Pretty minor tear with baby #1 (requiring 1 or 2 stitches). No tearing or episiotomy with #2 which was a surprise since her arm came out along side her head. I think my ob performing perineal massage helped a whole lot.

[Katie]

We had to use the vacuum to deliver my son and I tore. Just had a couple of stitches, which felt completely healed two weeks post-partum.

[Traciann]

I tore on the inside first while pushing, then later was cut...my Dr used a vacuum to help get DD out. I ended up with a 4th degree tear. I didn't feel like recovery was so terrible. I wasn't fully healed until 8 weeks PP...I had a lot of stitches. It sounds much scarier than it really was.

Traci

[dana b]

no episiotomy, first degree tear on the inside.

[Cohl]

no epi and no tear. I got really lucky!!

[princess1224]

After 2 hours of pushing I demanded the episiotomy. When the head crowns the dr is supposed ot have you stop pushing for a moment to ease the head out, well they didn't stop me from pushing so his head kind of exploded out of me. So I tore the rest of the way. It was 4th degree plus internal tearing. They had to call in a specialist to stitch me up and my dr had left and the nurse neglected to tell the specialist that I had internal tearing. So he stitched the outside and then had to do the internal stitches. He told me the tearing was so bad that I should consider a planned c-section the next time because my body couldn't handle tearing again like that. I should mention that I'm in Canada and c-sections are usually avoided here unless absolutely necessary.