To find the BBC article on research on c sections and evolution a bit off?

[bummymummy77]

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I find it a bit off. Yes it's science and cold hard fact but for some reason the tone got to me a bit.

And this is coming from someone who had a home birth and is very anti unnecessary interventions.

I can imagine it making women who've had c sections feeling like shite.

Seemed to me a little like the way it was worded is added to the quiet drip drip of c section stigma.

I mean, we've evolved past having enough body hair to survive in caves and eat raw meat, we treat cancer and intervene medically to save 1000's of lives daily.

At the same time I find it interesting and obviously most research will benefit mankind in some way.

What are other's views on it?

I missed the bit where it said women who had c-sections due to narrow pelvises were more likely to have daughters with the same issue.

Who are actually recorded as having had the same issue

"Why is there no research done into finding better ways to diagnose potential birth issues before a woman gives birth, midwifery seems so antiquated to me, why do they not find out if the baby is back to back for example?"

Because labour is a dynamic process. It's not just about the architecture of the body or even about the position of the baby. It's about the way the body works during labour.

Labour is inherently unpredictable. The more we try to predict, control, diagnose, monitor, the more we cause labours to become dysfunctional, as evidenced by the very large numbers of c-sections for 'failure to progress'.

I have read the paper - FWIW the part on C sections is only a small part of the analysis. As far as I can see, the 'numbers' they use for the C section part is an estimate of 3% incidence of fetopelvic disproportion, which is the lower end of the range estimated by the WHO. So to find the methodology for those numbers, I would have to go the WHO papers, and I'm not sure I can be bothered to go that far

"Why is there no research done into finding better ways to diagnose potential birth issues before a woman gives birth, midwifery seems so antiquated to me, why do they not find out if the baby is back to back for example? And why doesn't anyone research if the increase in inductions has caused an increase in c-sections?"

About 30 seconds on Pubmed would show you that people are researching these things

Isn't being both a Radio Sussex DJ and a eugenicist a bit like turkeys calling for Christmas?

For anyone who really cares, here is the WHO paper from which the estimates of foetopelvic disproportion used in the PNAS paper were taken:

www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/bod_obstructedlabour.pdf

The BBC report suggests that pelvis size has been relatively static and this has long been regarded as surprising. I'd be interested to see a chart of the size and weight of human babies over time - I'd be surprised if there hasn't been a huge increase over a relatively short period of time. If the health advances of modern society were reversed I think the size and weight of babies would probably diminish pretty rapidly.

My mother and grandmother gave birth to 5lb babies. My ds was 9lb and current baby measured nearly 7lb at 35 weeks. My pelvis can't possibly evolve quickly enough to accommodate the changes in antenatal advice, nutrition and healthcare that has nearly doubled the size of our gestating children. If that is my issue, who knows! No one seems particularly bothered about finding out why there can be failure to progress.

Lots of mothers and babies only survive birth through modern medicine and science. It should be a good thing to celebrate. Alternatives to antibiotics are being developed and it might be in the future babies grow in artificial wombs (you never know) and narrow-pelvised women can use one of those instead. They'll be the hatchimals of 2060 :)

Ok, I stand corrected. I had a c-section for exactly the reasons you state in your last paragraph minifingerz.

The weight of modern babies might diminish rapidly if modern women stopped eating diets with astonishingly an high level of refined carbohydrates and sugars in.

Also your average mother probably weighs 3 stone more than her counterpart from the 1920's and does only a fraction of the amount of physical activity...

I don't generally read medical journal, I've never seen any of this research you mention making it into the mainstream press.

I went up to around 60kg near term, which was fine. We never really found out why I grew such giant babies. I'm just grateful I only went into labour once and nobody made me have a go at squeezing any of them out.

If the research is being widely read by the medical community wouldn't it have filtered down to notes by now saying more than failure to progress?

Something which troubles me is why a quick ultrasound can't be done to see if baby is back to back, breech, cord issues etc where labour is not progressing. Might save a lot of guessing and emergencies, particularly if women are going in for induction anyway and labour hasn't started on its own.

I thought the BBC article did have a whiff of mysoginy about it to be honest. Imagine if you subtitled an article "interventions to save premature babies are influencing evolution" - you wouldn't would you? Because it seems to hint that perhaps those interventions shouldn't happen. But any medical intervention to help babies and children survive is going to affect evolution.

I wouldn't argue that the research itself is wrong, it is more the attitude of the media. This is seen as newsworthy because it is another chance to criticise women's birth choices.

Also agree that the huge increase in baby weights is a much more significant driver of csection rates than this evolutionary effect.

Well, I heard the R4 interview on the way home which also pointed out that people who wear glasses (like me) might have been weeded out of the gene pool early in life due to falling off stuff you didn't notice/ being eaten by animals you don't spot sneaking up on you. It does make sense to me. But I will still wear my glasses because modern medicine and engineering made them possible.

Imagine if you subtitled an article "interventions to save premature babies are influencing evolution" - you wouldn't would you?

I wouldn't have an issue with it-(if it were true) it's a statement of fact not a value judgement.

"This is seen as newsworthy because it is another chance to criticise women's birth choices."

The vast majority of c-sections in the U.K. are done for health reasons and are recommended by doctors. I can't see any implied criticism or women's choices in the BBC piece.

But there have been numerous articles over the years on survival of increasingly premature babies and the increase in learning disabilities, health and developmental problems, LivininaBox, so there is no need to imagine such an article.

In the case of this particular article, though, I really do think it would be a huge stretch of a paranoid imagination genuinely to believe there is a suggestion there on the part of the writer that women should be left to die in childbirth if their pelvis is too small for the size of their baby. There is more potential for the gutter press to pick up on the comments in there about diabetes and twist this into a lifestyle issue, though - I can already imagine a Daily Mail article about fat women's awful diets giving them diabetes and making their babies too huge to get past their pelvis.

The BBC even quotes the researcher saying, "our intent is not to criticise medical intervention."

"This is seen as newsworthy because it is another chance to criticise women's birth choices."

Is it only me who's missed these frequent criticisms? I can't help but wonder if they're imagined slights and you have a chip on your shoulder.

I had 2 elective C sections. Not because I'm too posh to push but because they're usually safer for the baby and I'm a mathematician. I've seen the size of a baby's head and when compared to my vagina, the figures didn't stack up. I've never felt put upon or judged in the slightest.

roundaboutthetown There is a lifestyle issue though. Not necessarily fatties making big babies but nutrition has improved drastically hence larger babies and this would of course be a faster change than the evolution of pelvic sizes. I do realise it's necessary to have one comment about the Daily Mail per page but that doesn't mean massive increases in diabetes and obesity isn't an issue.

Of course massive increases in diabetes are an issue - however, the way it is reported can either be neutral, or clearly placing the blame on individuals. A headline proclaiming fat women with awful diets are creating monstrous babies is extremely emotive and not remotely neutral -i.e. Exactly the sort of reporting of which the OP was proclaiming. Or did you not notice my deliberately provocative choice of words?! The current article is obviously intended to be neutral. I wouldn't believe the choice of words in my imagined article was intended to be neutral.

Complaining, not proclaiming. Predictive changes are so aggravating!

It is also true that it has been questioned whether it is a good idea to keep trying to keep increasingly premature babies alive because of the increased likelihood of long term problems the more premature they are. There is absolutely no way this could be reported without upsetting or even angering a lot of people, but if it has been mooted, it should be reported on. Likewise with modern lifestyles, heavier babies and diabetes, but the way it is done makes a difference to the reaction.

Besides which, it is not accurate reporting to claim that particular piece of research shows that diabetes is the cause of the increase the scientists were researching.