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 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."

Never mind the Daily Mail. Professor Lesley Regan, the new leader of the RCOG is quoted today in the Guardian as saying:

‘I have a responsibility to tell pregnant women the truth’ and "She means not only talking about smoking and contraception and – very importantly – mental health, but taking the bull by the horns and warning young women that they need to lose some weight. It’s a conversation some doctors shy away from. Not Regan. “I do certainly [tell my patients]. And I sometimes get myself into trouble. Sometimes people who are very overweight get very, very defensive about it. But I do think it’s very important and I think I have a responsibility to do that.”

She had just come from explaining to one of her patients (she is also a consultant at St Mary’s hospital, London) that fat is not padding. “Fat is an organ. It produces all sorts of chemicals and it’s going to affect the quality of the way she ovulates, the way she implants her embryo – and if she can get down to a normal BMI (body mass index) or certainly down to 30, then she’s going to dramatically improve her outcomes,” she says. And if young women can get down to a normal BMI – 18.5 to 25 is considered healthy – before they get pregnant, “their deliveries are so much simpler”, she adds.

here

Imagine if you subtitled an article "interventions to save premature babies are influencing evolution" - you wouldn't would you?
I really don't see what would be wrong with that. It is a simple observation that doesn't imply anything. It doesn't even indicate anything about whether the influence to evolution is positive, negative or neutral. Even if it did, it's still just an observation.

"This is seen as newsworthy because it is another chance to criticise women's birth choices."
Where is the criticism? Where is it even indicated that a c-section is a choice? It clearly explains how these women and babies would have died without intervention. There isn't so much as a hint that that would be a better outcome for society!

I read that too yesterday. She sounds to have a lovely manner about her.

"The regular use of Caesarean sections is having an impact on human evolution, say scientists"

Scientists "The regular use of Caesarean sections is having an impact on human evolution in one specific and interesting way related to this particular condition, it's really fascinating to be able to see the impact of human behaviours influencing the population's genetic makeup on this kind of timescale, let's talk about that some more"

Journalists "We're just gonna use that first part for the headline"

I think doctors have a duty to tell people they're unhealthy. We are tie damned precious about people's feelings.

The doctor doesn't have to say "hey fatty you're disgusting lose some weight" but they can say "your weight is unhealthy and puts both yourself and your baby at risk".

Well, exactly, Posie. If a doctor said to a patient that they were disgustingly fat, it was their fault for eating too many pies and cakes and they were to blame if their baby grew up to be an obese, diabetic adult with a foot amputation and blindness, they would and should be struck off. There are ways of saying things and there are ways...

Self-hate doesn't tend to cure disordered eating.

They admit that there's no actual proven causation.

Any medical intervention influences evolution. End of.

Strifae64 - don't get me wrong - I do find it fascinating but I can't understand why this caesarean intervention is more worthy of research and airtime than other things that might have an impact on evolution. It's a given, surely, because people are surviving who wouldn't have survived (mother and child) and going on to reproduce.

I don't think I'm articulating myself very well but, off the top of my head, why not look at the use of cars, or asthma inhalers or shopping in supermarkets vs. foraging for food or something. Those aren't great examples as not necessarily comparable to c-sections in the rate/time period in which they've increased or the life/death scenario, but isn't this all really obvious?!

Anyway, I sort of disagree with the view that this shames c-section birth - it's good news, surely!? All these people who wouldn't be here now are here!

Apologies again for not having read the paper but is the argument that the death rate has gone down whilst the CS rate has gone up? Because it all seems to be chat about CS rates but surely in order for evolution to be affected the death rate from fetopelvic disproportion should have gone down. But the movement is so small (6 in 1000) across two generations(ish). This could be due to medical fashion as much as anything (what decade was it that the crazy 'small feet = small pelvis = ooh you'll need a CS' thinking took off? 70s? But could be wrong) so in another couple of decades we could be back to 30 in 1000.

I mean bless that the researchers have such faith in doctors always getting obstetrics diagnoses right, and always carrying out necessary procedures rather than those which are most convenient for the hospital / least litigious. But I don't share their faith!

Heaven only knows why the researchers focused on what they did, what data they relied on, and how they sifted through the data. It hardly sounds like ground breaking research, just scientists trying to observe the impact of human interventions on human evolution, and the speed at which such interventions can have an impact.

Maybe the scientists thought they had picked an aspect of human evolution where it was easier to attribute the change to one cause than other aspects of evolution.

YABU. Was the science wrong then, in your esteemed opinion?

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

Can you now. Have you even read the article? It says these babies who are too large to pass through the pelvis and their mothers would have died without CS. Why on Earth would women feel bad about having survived thanks to CS?

As for babies getting heavier on average because of changes in diet: at what point does this cease to be considered healthy? As soon as the mother also has lifestyle-related diabetes? Or as soon as she gets over a certain bmi? Or as soon as she is shown to have more than a certain percentage of internal body fat, even if otherwise apparently slim? Or as soon as she admits to not exercising for the latest recommended number of hours per week? Or as soon as she states a particular fondness for chocolate and lemonade? Should all pregnant women be screened for physical fitness as part of their antenatal appointments?

Basically, the actual research and article hardly opened a can of worms - I doubt current practice will change as a result of it.

The human race has got bigger and I don't mean fatter. If you look at skeletons from the Mary Rose or into a historical house you will notice plenty of evidence that people were shorter regardless of social class.

The incidence of obstetric complications is affected by a lot of things. In the past having tickets could cause a woman to die in childbirth. Access to NHS care prevents severe rickets. Seperating out the affects of lifestyle and natural selection is a challenge. There are more back to back labours because women spend less time doing physical work. I.e. We work in an office sitting at a computer rather than the fields or grinding flour.

The NHS has been around for 70 years so it's only been three generations that everyone in the uk has had access to decent health care. Forceps have only been around for the wealthy since Victorian times. I am surprised that there has been enough time for natural selection to be effected.

The topic of childcare will always be emotive. Surely the article validates the need for c sections. Suggesting that there might be factors beyond a woman's control that made natural childcare impossible is surely kinder than the idiots who believe that whale music is the cure for all.

I feel the next challenge is to use this research to identify women who need a c section earlier so that they have a calmer birthing experience by planned c section.

When I was under hospital care when pregnant they were OBSESSED with my weight. They kept telling me if I put on too much they'd be scheduling me for an early c section. They take it very seriously in the States (where I am at least) and don't mince their words.

When I swapped to my midwife she was much more chilled but then I put on 5 stone. ( at 5 2 this was way too much). I wish she'd have told me to lay off the cakes occasionally. A balance between the two would have been good.

Plus birthing when you're massively overweight is way way harder.

Of course being hugely overweight makes everything more difficult and is extremely unhealthy. It's living in serious denial not to know so already without being told. Mind you, when it comes to pregnancy, I think we are told far too much. If you followed every bit of advice on diet in pregnancy, I'm not sure there would be much you could eat that wouldn't freak you out for one reason or another. We are supposed to panic about cured meats, unpasteurised cheese, salads, undercooked eggs and meats. Frankly, the advice is enough to drive you to malnutrition and often then changed - to eat peanuts or not to eat peanuts? You can forgive women for ceasing to take any advice seriously when the serious stuff is buried underneath the overdose of everything else.

Big babies aren't necessarily overweight. The bones are often bigger. It's the head circumference rather than the belly of the baby that makes it difficult to deliver.

And babies born to diabetics often have big heads and shoulders to go with their big bodies.

Yet being diabetic or overweight does not automatically mean you will have a big baby, or pregnancy complications.

Wonder how I fit in, five natural births including a baby of 10lb 13oz with head circumference off the chart. Pipped him out in birth pool in under an hour and yet baby six ended as emcs.... The Dr's were baffled they expected a quick easy birth. Instead I had over 24hrs of constant contractions and a cervix that didn't dilate past four.

I read the article, it doesn't make me feel.shit but does add to culture where women and their bodies are up for judgement and debate in a way which mens never are.

Article is just highlighting the wonderful impact c sections have (saving lives in cases where both mum and baby would die) and noting the byproduct of this medical intervention (genes being passed on which would not happen if it was natural selection). Nothing bad, just an observation