Green Party pledge to reduce c section rates

[TTCaxristi]

Is this something a political party should even get involved in?

I had understood that a focus on keeping c sections below an arbitrary threshold was at least partially responsible for the Shrewsbury maternity scandal.

https://news.sky.com/story/shrewsbury-maternity-scandal-the-babies-who-died-in-the-uks-worst-hospital-childbirth-scandal-12576727

It looks as though the greens are reviewing the policy now but am I alone in finding this chilling? What does it say about their attitude to women? I really strongly believe that it’s up to the individual woman how she gives birth, and the focus on arbitrary targets is misguided at best and dangerous at worst.

YABU - this is something a political party should have a policy on
YANBU - this is not something a non medical entity should have policy on

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/green-party-nhs-lbc-b1162105.html#

Politicians create advisory groups of doctors and consultants to review NHS practices, advise on changes to management & funding models for the NHS and to write/update the NICE guidelines all the time. It’s a good practice.

The politicians don’t do it themselves, they are simply pledging that they will fund to have the review done by the expert doctors and consultants.

It is well known that maternity care on the NHS is very poor. Who else would establish and fund a complete review with aim to improve it if not our government? and that requires politicians committing to it.

That is for the advisory group to determine, it’s not a politicians place to dictate or promise medical solutions to a medical problem.

This.

Medical interventions save lives. Including mine. Weasle words in political policies mean "funnel people into the cheaper options". Some births are straightforward and can take place with minimal midwife support and little medical resources. Others need a lot of interventions and if you don't know which you are going to get it's sensible to be near where those interventions can be delivered swiftly as soon as the need is detected.

I don’t agree at all. Any review the Greens would fund would be conducted by experts- OB consultants, midwives. Saying there may be too many interventions causing unnecessary csections isn’t saying that all interventions are unnecessary and all csections are unnecessary.

I do think c sections are on the rise as mothers are being treated crappily. Understaffed, under resourced maternity units can lead to a cascade of interventions as well as making childbirth as stressful and unpleasant as possible. I honestly wonder how many cases of PND are caused by being treated shoddily in labour, then the shocking levels of sleep deprivation you get to experience on the ward. I know everyone says you forget the horrors of childbirth due to hormones etc. which feels like gas lighting in all honesty. If you treated prisoners the way we, sometimes (not all hospitals/ maternity units are like this I hope), treat new mothers you’d be in contravention of Article 3 of ECHR.

Improve prenatal/ antenatal care. C sections stats will resolve themselves.

Might not go into labour? Breaking the waters is done to speed up labour not start it and it has been observed that this has been misused to speed up labour in maternity wards that are understaffed, with not enough beds and labouring mums have to be conveyer belted & hurried along because speed is more important than mum or baby’s safety/suffering or post birth complications to healing, future fertility, infant bonding and childbirths.

To start labour, you usually induce with pitocin drip.

It’s such a strange thing, the Green Party.

I think they realised ages ago that they are the knee jerk protest vote and they are capitalising on this by moving away from the green agenda and going for some really bonkers ideas.

I suppose the thinking about Caesarians would be about going back to Mother Nature, or something?

I think it's the job of our government to manage all areas of our country is it not? The NHS is a government run body so yeah I'd say they have control over it.

There are far too many interventions in pregnancy and birth and many many studies have shown that these actually increase the risks to mother and baby. Hospitals intervene to protect themselves from suing if something goes wrong "we did all we could".

Thing is, people do think “well I don’t like the tories or Labour but I do like the environment so I’ll vote Green” without having the first idea what their policies are actually about.

I want to vote for green party for their environmental policies. But their views on other things such as this mean I won't.

The focus should be on improving care for women, not on a specific intervention like c section. Improved care overall would probably reduce the need for c sections, as a side effect.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-67238868

Poor maternity tolerated as normal, inquiry says
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4n1jv7xxpwo?trk=public_post_comment-text

The inquiry full text, in executive summary
”Women frequently felt they had been subjected to interventions they had not consented to…”
https://www.theo-clarke.org.uk/sites/www.theo-clarke.org.uk/files/2024-05/Birth%20Trauma%20Inquiry%20Report%20for%20Publication_May13_2024.pdf

At least they are including a commitment to improving maternity care as a talking point in their manifesto.

I think they should focus on having clean water with enough reservoirs so we can all survive in the next 30 years, and supporting the NHS to make evidence based decisions using the correct number of qualified staff.

no hospital wants you to have a C section unless you need it. No one wants you to have an intervention you don’t need. They just want you and your baby to survive childbirth. The heart rate of your unborn child, your heart rate and your temperature and pretty good markers. I don’t need a green MP telling me to ignore those warning signs and just try for a ‘natural birth’.

Well let's all be thankful they will never get in govt. It's looney ideas like this that seriously harm their chances of getting seats in marginal areas.

Apparently the Green Party co-lead’s children were both delivered by c-section!

They have no understanding of biology.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.