22-year-old Fi Oates, a TikToker from Wales, shared her birth story on the platform and boy did it garner a lot of attention. She posted a 12-second clip talking about how she had gotten a c-section without the use of any pain relief, and the clip got more than 130,000 views in a matter of two days. Although she didn’t go into great detail about what happened in the video, she took to her comments to share more about her experience.
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@fi_oates Traumatising to say the least.. no more kids for me thanks🙅🏽♀️xo #labour#labourstory#csection#baby
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Sepsis
The new mother said that she and her little one were infected with sepsis, so the doctors had to do what they could to get the baby out as soon as possible. As explained by the NHS, sepsis is a life-threatening reaction to an already persistent infection. It occurs when ‘your immune system overreacts to an infection and starts to damage your body’s own tissues and organs.’
To avoid any further complications, the doctors had to proceed with a c-section and Oates was given an epidural—an injection administered to stop one from feeling pain—but unfortunately it had failed. As a result, the young mother had to sit through the whole procedure, feeling every single little incision. She said in the comments:
Nothing worked on me and there was no time because both me and my baby had sepsis so they had to get her out as quick as possible.
I begged to be put to sleep but they couldn’t risk it because I had sepsis and I was at risk of going into a coma.
I was awake and felt every last thing.
More common that you think
Though it seems like a rather rare occurrence, her comments section was flooded with other fellow mothers who went through similar horrific experiences. One viewer commented:
Girl same!!! Failed epidural and spinal!! Never met anyone who went through it as well. So traumatising.
Another viewer wrote:
This was me with my 2nd section, absolutely horrendous, never met anyone else it’s happened to, hats off to you it’s the worst pain ever xx.
To which Oates replied:
It’s more common that people think! Defo needs to be spoken about more xx.
