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#

This is weirdly specific. Pledge a management and spending review of the NHS, ok, if it’s going to improve it but do not politicise specific medical interventions in this way, that is completely inappropriate.

What a surprise that a trans-activist political party makes a statement like this that evidences its total lack of understanding of women's needs.

But you just can't compare the 1900s with modern technology and modern facilities, qualified midwifes, etc. This is just from the sublime to the ridiculous.

C-sections are true life savers, for both mum and baby. I had one for our first, after long labour, due to breech position, and I am so grateful we were both saved. And then two 'normal' deliveries, safely, for the next two.

Staffing and conditions should be really improved, and C-sections be reserved for medical conditions, not elective for all. Do we really want to have rates increasing all the time, 60, 70, 80 % for no medical reasons?

…..Yeah let’s empower women by telling them how they should be empowered….

Concerns about high CS rates are justified, because such a surgical procedure is not without risk. Serious complications such as infection, thrombosis, postpartum haemorrhage and increased risk in subsequent pregnancies may occur [4]. The World Health Organization states that there is no justification for a CS rate higher than 10%–15%.

Vaginal deliveries are also not without risk. You are more likely to have a vaginal delivery with interventions than not. Therefore statistically women are better off having an elective section

@Mustreadabook I think you've hit the nail on the head with why it's so difficult to get accurate and contextual information because there are so many other factors. One of my close friends had an assisted delivery and months later was still having follow up care due to it. An on call doctor had been rushed to her labour due to baby in distress but it turned out the monitor had just slipped and babys recordings were fine when it was adjusted. The doctor was basically like well I'm here anyway and went ahead with forceps. Totally unnecessary and you do need to question how often these things are happening. She never reported it as her and her baby were effectively safe and well but it stuck with her. I think there's more unnecessary intervention than needed and I also think a lot of that is linked to induction.

They’ve completely lost the plot. As someone mentioned up thread - now that “being green” is on mainstream agendas, they’ve got to come up with something else. Bunch of crack pots really.

because the system is so poorly staffed and funded. The priority should be on improving this drastically, to give women the confidence to give birth safely without intervention, in most cases.

But why? In every other field of medicine we celebrate the technological advancements and accept them. Why do women still want to give birth like cavewomen.

Because sections are the easy way out apparently.

Sorry but I find that hard to believe. That an obstetrician would wade in with forceps if recordings had returned to normal just because they’d been called in.

Something else worth remembering is that lots of women can be left with serious faecal incontinence issues if they deliver a large baby per vagina and tear. Just because it’s “natural” doesn’t mean it’s always better hence the higher rates of maternal and infant deaths in poorer countries.

The person who decides who gets a c section should be the mother if it’s pure choice and if it’s medically necessary to preserve life then the mother in conjunction with her medical team. I’d suggest someone who comes up with this shit spends 24hrs on the average maternity ward before deciding money can be saved by reducing women’s choices and pretending it’s some lifestyle choice Mother Earth bullshit. Maybe it’s a crappy way to reduce population by making it even more barbaric to give birth here than it already is.

@CoralQueef

But why? In every other field of medicine we celebrate the technological advancements and accept them. Why do women still want to give birth like cavewomen.

Thank you. I find it absolutely maddening that maternity is still seen with this sentimentalising and primitive lens: in no other area of medicine is there this belief that a potentially dangerous situation is enhanced by removing technology, reverting to atavistic ideas of some primitive Eden and telling women to expect an outdated standard of care.

As multiple people have rightly pointed out on here there’s no real evidence that “intervention” (and I hate that word - when did you last hear cancer medicine referred to an as intervention?) makes birth any more dangerous. The statistics that are trotted out are always without proper context and skewed to serve this primitivist agenda. Routine vaginal birth is indeed safer but many vaginal births are not safe.

And still women are patronised and subjected to substanndard care in the name of being “natural”.

It’s a bit of a shame because the Greens could have achieved something, but over the years they’ve turned into a party of absolute bampots.

I wonder if that's where the Greens are coming from. Given some of their other batshit policies have they bought into the 'too posh to push' narrative and think that they're hitting back at a privileged class without bothering about the reality of C sections?

'Always maternity where pain relief and medical care is painted as unneccessary isn’t it'

Exaaaactly. Perfectly put.

This is a horrible idea rooted in misogyny and nothing else. Apparently no one at the Green Party bothered to read the Ockendon Report.

Cancer is natural, but it still needs treatment. Why do women have to have this shit?!

Who is talking about giving birth like cave women? Oh please, this sublime to the ridiculous on MN is just beyond ridiculous.

I am talking about well staffed maternity services, with great facilities, good preparation, excellent medical support, etc - cave women did NOT benefit from this, did they?

C-sections are life savers, but there is absolutely NO reason for them to become the norm. And not safe either.

Having your baby make contact with you, skin to skin, and move to the breast to feed, safely, and with professional support, should not be denied in the name of 'new technology'. Women should feel safe and supported- and not the case currently in this depleted NHS. Sad beyond words. Let's remedy this, and the C-section requests rate, for non medical reasons, will drop naturally.

not sure what century you’re living in but I had skin to skin instantly and my baby crawled up to my breast to feed with an elective section.

So make the target around providing adequate staff, beds, maternity units then. Don't make the target to reduce the number of c sections.

Are there any stats on how many sections are for medical/non-medical reasons? There seems to be this narrative that women are demanding c-sections for frivolous reasons, but I'd be really surprised if that's true.

As others have said, my baby had lots of skin to skin and is still partially breastfed at one year. A section doesn't preclude that.

@StacieBenson

Are there any stats on how many sections are for medical/non-medical reasons? There seems to be this narrative that women are demanding c-sections for frivolous reasons, but I'd be really surprised if that's true.

Define “frivolous”. Would you say being terrified of “natural” birth was “frivolous”? I was beyond terrified of it. To the point that I had counselling in the weeks running up to it. I was denied an elective C section despite a letter from the GP. In the event my birth was relatively OK. I found it horrendously painful and was fobbed off for hours when I requested an epidural and my labour lasted over a day and involved a ventouse and a tear. But in the scheme of things I have heard and read, I got off fairly lightly.

But I have always been suspicious of the economic arguments against elective C sections. NICE rightly approves very expensive cancer drugs which in many cases will only allow a terminally ill person a few extra months of life. The calculation is that preserving quality of life for as long as possible is paramount. And that’s as it should be.

Those sorts of calculations seem not to be applied with respect to C section though even though these are far cheaper than an immunotherapy drug and even though there is evidence that over the long term at a population level C sections can actually reduce cost. And that’s not taking into account the economic cost of the mental health impact of a traumatic birth, which can be significant.

I’m not comparing cancer therapy to C sections but it does feel that the economic lens applied to C sections is that they are an indulgence if not a strict medical necessity.
Its hard to escape the conclusion that yet again women are subjected to a different cost/benefit analysis when it comes to their health.

It doesn’t matter the reason behind it though. Women are entitled to have a delivery of their choosing.

Exactly!