Green Party pledge to reduce c section rates

The UK, with much midwife led care, allredy has enough focus on birth being a normal, non medical event. As long as you're low risk that is! I don't think it's a bad sentiment but politicians should be aware about the implications on women's choice and funding in different areas of the NHS. I actually think that politicians do have a role in this country to talk about things like c section rates because the NHS is funded by the government, and policies should be on how it could be improved.

However, this is a very uneducated stance. It sounds like it is saying less money should be spent on NHS maternity care, if it's not medical and that is dangerous. I think it's really just a hippy stance for homebirths, and will attract people who fear hospitals, and are paranoid about the medical industry.

Will they be reducing the c section rate for women or men, because they don't actually seem to know what the difference is.

I have absolutely no idea what the Green Party thinks a woman's medical decisions have got to do with them.

When was the last time they said anything about climate change?

The greens? The party who defined women as 'non men'? Yeah I've no interest in opinions on maternity care from a party which pretends not to know what a woman is

YANBU, I had an elective section last year and honestly this is just ridiculous

Especially as data proves long term outcomes are better for elective section mums compared to vaginal births and EMCS so it’s costly too

honestly. what utter tosh
the rates of c sections is increasing because of mums having babies at an older age/ or having babies despite having medical conditions. also higher rates of obese patients

C sections are only very much more expensive than a vaginal birth if the vaginal birth is straightforward with no interventions and no resulting care needed.

In addition that doesn't take into account all the birth injuries resulting from vaginal births, both to women and babies, and the cost of treating those injuries. That's if you can even get treatment.

I developed ptsd after my traumatic birth. A large part of the ptsd was the doctors refusal to even talk about the risks and benefits of c sections and insisting i had to do it vaginally.

The waiting list for the trauma specific treatment i needed for the ptsd was about 5 years long. If they'd listened to me and given me the c section i needed, i wouldn't have developed ptsd.

Green's equivalent of the Tories' national service idea. A bollocks idea, put up by a advisory group in order to grab the votes of the terminally stupid.

A better idea would be to improve ante-natal care.

Also, without 'politicians' we wouldn't have an NHS, and the current one's in power are wrecking it, so everything health related is political.

The green party can fuck right off.

Doctors having pressure to reduce the number of sections led to them refusing my (entirely reasonable) maternal request c section and my baby nearly dying from an entirely foreseeable complication.

I lean left wing and think climate change is one of the most important issues facing the planet, but this and some of the other Green Party policies are ridiculous.

So, if the Green Party wanted to address obesity with some sensible policies, then great. But to specifically focus on c sections as a target is to address a symptom not a cause, and to focus overly on women as problematic for society due to selfishly needing or even daring to ask for a c section.

The other ludicrous Scottish policy was the bottle return scheme. I pay my council tax which includes recycling for glass etc, under this crackpot scheme I need to take them back to a supermarket to get money back. I get my shopping delivered, I don’t live near to a supermarket. So I would then have to drive out somewhere to return these bottles that in turn then need to be picked up, I assume by a truck. Extra vehicles on the road…why not encourage people to use the right bins that are already picked up by one truck?

Utter crackpots!

This is madness and I am shocked it is a policy. Am so fed up of women being seen as something to 'manage' and control like this. It should be something for doctors and patients not politicians. As others have said, so many women died of childbirth (and still do though thankfully much rarer). I would have been one if not for c-sections - I tried twice to deliver but to no avail.

Not going to do much for managing the rapidly declining birthrate either as women will just not want to risk it. I am becoming grimly fascinated by how this is playing out around the world right now in various countries with women choosing to not get married and not have sex and children and the push for commercial surrogacy/child trafficking. I wonder how men/governments are going to respond to that - maybe that's what is behind the anti-abortion laws sweeping the US? Because they care little for the child once born.

I agree. But it's an unfortunate consequence of the way politics works. When things go wrong, as they did at the Shrewsbury and Telford Trust, people look to the politicians. So it's not surprising that politicians encroach on areas that shouldn't concern them when ultimately people want to hold them responsible. Any politician who rightly said, "It's not a matter for government" would be accused of all manner of neglect.

The solution is for politicians and voters and the media to agree on the where the boundaries lay. But politicians won't ever do that because everything is the government's fault when you're an opposition MP looking to make trouble.

I'm afraid the party has lost the plot with this one- mind you - you can say any old dogmatic idealistic shit when you know you won't have to follow through- see Farage for details-

Sounds like they've been invaded by the 'breathe it all away brigade' - I appreciate 'some' women go for all that and works for them- it should however be an optional individual choice - not medical policy.

What next? Compulsory breast feeding for 18 months?

It just shows out of touch they are. Out of ALL the topics that really mean something to voters, they come out peddling this shit that is really saying 'women cannot be trusted with their own bodies'.

Next one will be a free red cloak with every vote

I wouldn’t touch the Greens with a bargepole. The Scottish party are all utter crackpots. They stated a female undergoing a rape examination was not allowed to specify a female, non trans doctor as that’s transphobic. What now, a woman violated by a man has to submit to an intimate exam by a man or trans woman dr?

C sections are not done lightly, it is up to patient and Doctor.

I know the Greens won't get in but this has made me so angry. My hospital convinced me to initially go for an induction which ended up in a c-section. I know if I had persevered with the induction I would have lost my baby; he was too small to survive. I am so thankful to the midwife who advocated for me with the consultants and got me my section. We should be providing c-sections to mums and babies who need it, not casting around for some random national target. Obviously whoever came up with this never bothered to read the Ockenden review, which brings into question their policy making skills. I'm a floating voter and they've lost my vote.

Yes it is a political issue, because c sections cost a lot more money than non c section births and their rate of use tends to increase exponentially over time (see data from other countries), demand is driven by other social health problems we need to address such as obesity.
Anything that involves the state and public money is political.
But don't worry Op, nothing will change.

It's nearly impossibly to get a c section just because you want it. C sections are advised by qualified doctors when there is a risk. Policitical parties needs to stay out of this

I cannot stand any organisation that restricts the rights women have over their own bodies. The Green Party should allow maternity specialist HCPs to help women make the decision over the safest way to give birth.

I had both DC by C section. Both transverse. At a follow up appointment in a different hospital after DS1 was born, I was informed they would have made me go for a natural birth. My guess is, I'd be at least one child down if that had happened, or at best, have endured excruciating hours of labour and then an EC instead of the blissful, calm ELC.

There are many drawbacks to having a C-section. But the notion of a 'target' instead of appropriate assessment of each individual case disgusts me. We are human beings not statistics' stooges.

Yes immigration is a big topic for voters. Yet they don't realise that climate change will cause a huge migration of people!

Yes, exactly this. I love the idea of a party that makes the environment a genuine priority, not just giving it lip service. But when I looked up the Greens' manifesto a few years ago, it was full of BS like this. As a result I've never voted for them.

Climate change comes relatively low on the list of UK voters' worries – on Tuesday, a YouGov poll put it fifth, after the economy, health, immigration & asylum and housing. So that won't incentivise any of the other major parties to make it a top priority. Which leaves voters like me slightly floundering.

Maybe sky-high infant and maternal mortality rates in the West are the Green's way of reducing global population sizes and therefore reducing demand on natural resources?