schmee - I have re-read my last post, and there is absolutely nothing whatsover in it that could remotely cause offence. My point about some women regretting having highly medicalised births is absolutely true - just scan the MN threads and look at the number of women who have had huge interventions first time, and actively seek a different, non medicalised experience next time. If you extrapolate from what I said that a woman who regrets her birth experience is feeling 'to blame' for it, then that's your spin on it - not mine. I don't think 'regret' implies guilt or blame whatsover. It's simply about wishing things had been different.
As for your point: "I think most people who have a large degree of intervention first time round do so out of medical need" - well, that's highly debatable, which is the whole point. What do you define as 'medical need'? Most epidurals aren't for 'medical need' (though in some cases the doctor will recommend it as safest if the mother has particularly blood pressure problems). Many instrumental deliveries, and csections, occur as a result of the cascade of intervention - so one could argue that it wasn't a medical necessity which instigated the process.
Actually, if anything is offensive, it's your comment about the culture which glorifies natural childbirth as 'ignoring the history of maternal and infant death rates'. It's actually pretty underhand and nasty to imply that women who choose natural childbirth are somehow risking their own and their children's safety. Women who choose natural childbirth (where it's possible to have one, which is for most births) do so precisely because in a normal pregnancy, minimal intervention, unless complications occur by chance, is safest for the baby.
If a woman chooses to have a different kind of birth, then as long as she has weighed up the risks, then whats the problem? I have a colleague who recently gave birth who told me from about 12 weeks pregnant that she would have "every drug going" in labour. She did - and was happy with her choice. Horses for courses. But that doesn't mean those drugs were medically necessary - they were what she wanted.
Schmee - my first post to you on this thread was: find out from your consultant which is less risky for this particular pregnancy. Surely that's the only thing that matters to most women?
I am not anti intervention at all. As I've said, I was told I needed a CS at 32 weeks to save the life of my dc2. So I had one. When I was pregnant the 3rd time, I asked my consultant which carried the lower risk for me, with this pregnancy. If he's said Csection, I'd have happily had another, for my baby's sake. Because he said that for this baby, a VBAC would pose less risk, and that it would be safest to try to do it naturally, but in hospital (nor MLU because I was now considered a higher risk generally) that's what I did.
I still fervently believe that better resources should be in place to enable women to be supported through labour by midwives - they are the experts in 'normal' births, and the evidence shows time and time again, that it isn't always having powerful painkilling drugs, or medical interventions which makes for a better birth experience, it's being supported in non medical ways.