Green Party pledge to reduce c section rates

"So they publish their rates of third and fourth degree tears then do they?"

Yes - they do. https://maternityaudit.org.uk/pages/home These are included as part of their audit of maternity outcomes every year and they get a great deal of attention among midwifery staff.

But agree - it's often very hard to make sense of statistics at an individual level.

So for example, we might say 'this percentage of people who have a vaginal birth will experience a severe perineal laceration' - but if we don't then stratify that by parity, maternal age, mode of onset of birth and possibly by birth setting, then it's very hard for individuals to make sense of what that risk means for them. We also need to look at long term outcomes and what impacts on these. The quality of the initial repair and follow up will make a difference to long term outcomes.

If someone wants to knock on my door and tell me about their politics, which involve restricting women's right to make choices about safe healthcare on the basis of cost, i don't owe them shit.

If this sweet little 20 year old is old enough to knock on my door and tell me all about the green party with wide eyed naivete, they're old enough to have a discussion with me about it.

If they are upset by me getting upset, then maybe they'll have a think about the kind of politics they're representing. I really couldn't care less if i upset a canvasser who is intruding into my personal space. I wouldn't dream of doing it if i approached them on the street, because i wouldn't.

I don't have the emotional energy to contact green party hq to tell them about why pregnant women aren't the enemy, or why a policy around improving maternity care would have been a better idea than just targeting c section numbers. If they can't work it out themselves, why do i have to tell them?

Don't worry, the tory and reform candidates will get hell too.

So they publish their rates of third and fourth degree tears then do they?

The data just shows VB, ELCS, EMCS and assisted delivery.

It doesn't show the demographics of the women using the service.

It's really not helpful at all.

'costs nothing'

Tilts head.

Do you understand what a cost analysis is?

Do you understand how gender neutral medical terms harm women? And are far from inclusive. They are elitist.

Poor maternal outcomes are most associated with black women and women who do not have English as a first language. Using word salad terms has greater negative consequences for this group than benefits for another who have the backing of loud and powerful lobby groups.

If we spent more time talking about this instead of the resources used to focus on the teeny tiny number of women (yes they are women) who use maternity services but are in denial that they are women, then I'd have time for your concept of 'inclusivity'. But we don't.

So no. Im not a transphobe. I'm just sick of the greens reducing women to unimportant 'non-men' (their language not mine) who are second class to default human aka men. I'm sick of the invisibility and lack of thought to how making simple language with broad understanding levels compliance, excludes and marginalises groups which are already the single most at risk group in maternity services.

So yeah. Nice to see how we dont centre on the real biggest needs in maternity or women centred care and we must put ideology before maternal outcomes.

Slow hand clap for illustrating the point.

Why is it absolutely disgusting to label people who want an extension of access of maternal choice caesarean as promoting 'too posh to push' but completely reasonable to point to those advocating changes in maternity care that increase the likelihood of a straightforward experience for those who would prefer not to have a surgical birth and label them as reckless idealists?

It's good to promote women's access to maternal choice caeasaren.

It's good to promote women's access to care supportive of physiology if they want the best chance of a safe vaginal birth.

Can we stop the culture wars around this issue - it's all bs and toxic to women and to people working in maternity.

Well, you certainly are consistent in your whataboutery.

There will be no investing in maternity care. It will all be more butchering and damaging women. In some cases it will frankly endanger lives. My own daughter would be dead without a C-section she was stuck and in distress. The greens wanting this are probably expecting Women to all have magical woo free births in fields surrounded by farm animals and only an old wise woman to assist. Infant and mother mortality means nothing to birth idealists. Women don't matter at all to any of the politicians in charge.

Perhaps we should start denying men proper health care. We can tell them that all their health concerns are hormonal or weight related and they should drink more water. Force them to have minor procedures without pain relief (looking at you coil insertions). Force men to have 3 yearly undignified procedures that at best are uncomfortable for women and have not been changed since they were invented and done on slave women who the physician decided wasn't human at the time so ignored any pain or discomfort she may feel (looking at you cervical smears). Then gaslight the men undergoing these procedures. I'm pretty sure the tide would change then.

@RedToothBrush

"Those who talk about the figures on CS never stop to think about the figures for assisted birth. The data for that is hard to find"

That data is not hard to find.

Hospitals publish monthly figures showing their birth outcomes in accessible formats (usually a cute infographic) on their facebook pages, and then you can access NHS statistics easily online.

"Meanwhile staff are unavailable for patient facing time for significant chunks of paid employment because they are busy being re-educated about what a woman is and how important it is not to refer to mothers or use gendered language for a female only fucking service."

I was waiting for a transphobe to join the thread and shoehorn a comment about transgender people into the discussion. 😂

'they are unavailable for 'significant chunks of paid employment because they're busy being re-educated about what a woman is'

Significant chunks of time? Really? How much? If midwives have clients who are LGBTQ - and they do - they're expected to attend training so they can sensitively meet the needs of these people. Why does it make you angry that a midwife might have additional training to be able to support the needs of their patients? Or is it just one particular group of patients you want midwives not to be able to access training for?

Midwives refer to 'birthing people' IN ADDITION to 'women' and 'mothers' because they care for pregnant people who want to be referred to in that way, and it costs midwives nothing to be inclusive.

"I'm not even going to comment on the cost analysis 'benefits' to this cos maternity should be all about listening to patients and having time with patients."

Not trans people though presumably? Their wishes about how health professionals communicate with them should be ignored for ideological reasons, yes? 🙄

Those who talk about the figures on CS never stop to think about the figures for assisted birth. The data for that is hard to find. The data on long-term outcomes is even harder.

If we looked at the elective rate, the staffing rate, the obesity rate, the maternal age rate, the underlying medical condition rate, the birth injuries by method of birth rate, the unassisted birth rate, the patient satisfaction rate and then finally the emergency CS rate (amongst others) I MIGHT give this the time of day.

But we don't. We just have this fuck witted mentality driven by zealots of all kinds that 'cs = bad, VB = good'.

Words can not express my contempt for people who seek to do this. It's just so appallingly ignorant.

I mean there is evidence that better care generally equals less intervention and lower c-sections rates. Of course a certain level of intervention and cesareans are NECESSARY but this isn’t always the case and it’s important to look into why numbers are getting higher.

But will measures to ‘lower c-section rates’ actually mean investing a lot more money in maternity care to ensure a higher standard? Or will it just mean dangerous decisions being made when intervention is needed, more women being butchered and injured by forceps, more hospitals point-blank refusing anybody who wants to request a c-section despite very valid reasoning, more traumatised women, more poor outcomes. Just having an aim to do ‘less c-sections’ with numbers and figures in mind will do so much damage!

I'm so angry about this.

I've ranted about maternity issues on MN for years and how political parties choose to weaponise C-sections.

This is so so regressive and show a deep level of not understanding a major problem with in the NHS.

There is no other healthcare issue that has been more scandal ridden than maternity care over the last 20 years. None.

The Greens clearly have not been paying attention to healthcare politics AT ALL. This stinks of small party riddled with nutjobs with pet ideological pursuits and not a fucking clue about the real world.

Anyone would think that NICE and the Green top guidelines didn't exist. I suppose the Green Party think they know better.

As for the comments that 'oh it's ok they are now reviewing the policy' after it's been pointed out how dangerous and regressive it is - that's really not ok.

We are in an election. They've had five fucking years to develop a manifesto and decide on policies.

Yet no fucker decided to question this one until it hit the public? What does that say about their internal policy development and review process?

It's really showing how they have not down due diligence or checking on the basic background to problems in maternity services. Which are all centred really on a lack of adequate staffing.

Meanwhile staff are unavailable for patient facing time for significant chunks of paid employment because they are busy being re-educated about what a woman is and how important it is not to refer to mothers or use gendered language for a female only fucking service. I'm not even going to comment on the cost analysis 'benefits' to this cos maternity should be all about listening to patients and having time with patients.

I find their righteousness about being kind both hypocritical and frightening.

Their "kindness" is only for the benefit of misogynistic men. Delusional women may just squeak in when they deny they're women, but that's it. Actual women are unpeople.

This isn't true. This was the old outdated who position. At least get It bloody right.

When will politicians get their hands off what happens with women's bodies????????

It's actually unnatural how many restrictions are placed on women's bodies and the laws around their medical health. It's really disturbing. There isn't a fraction of these rules and regulations on what happens with men's bodies.

There is another way of describing them.

Grossly naive, ideologically driven and lacking in real world life experience.

And green issues are no longer their key focus.

Yes this matters even as a minor party because they still drive public discussions because legally they have to be given fair airtime. This can lead to the perpetuation of pretty ignorant views (such as stuff about the cost of C-sections which was examined and dismissed by NICE who are very cost focused). They are every bit as bad as the hard right (who also have a problem with the cost of C-sections).

I find their righteousness about being kind both hypocritical and frightening.

Your attitude appears to be that they won't get in and therefore it doesn't matter.

It does matter. It matters what politicians say even if they are stupid idealistic ones who haven't got a shot of getting in. If an extent right wing party said something about withdrawing aid to gaza, I'm pretty sure that you would feel it was relevant even though they have no hope of winning the election.

I don't believe you have a grapevine of political spies. Not everything is a labour plant. Labour didn't make the green party target pregnant women. Call it dirty politics but you've got no actual evidence. We do have evidence of what the green party said.

They don't:

https://statsforgender.org/medical-transition/

But back to the topic, why do the Greens want to reduce choice and safety for maternity care? Why is that where they start? The Greens have a serious misogyny problem

That’s not actually true…

No problem!!

That's been comprehensively debunked

This

Exactly. Medical intervention in the pursuit of “gender reassignment” is definitely not life saving,

It is life saving. Suicide rates significantly reduce in trans people who have had reassignment surgery.