to think that some MNers are just a tweensy bit biased when it comes to elective CS?

[youcannotbeserious]

Why is it, when anyone ever posts that they want an elective CS / considering going private, LOTS of MNers start going on about the risks (I appreciate that they exist and, to be fair, they are explained in detail by the consultant and you have to sign a waiver so you are fully aware of them) and needing to be in an NHS hospital 'just in case' and you wouldn't want to be in one of those pesky private hospitals, but the same never gets said for home births which, as far as I can see, must have a reasonably equal risk of needing to go to transfer to a hospital?

Why is it that Elec. CSs are so frowned upon?

I'm genuinely curious - I had to defend my 'birth plan' several times here on MN - and I don't honestly see why it's so emotive... Should I run for it now?

it's ok to drive after a CS as soon as your doctor /midwife / hv says it's ok to.

obviously, different people will have different recovery rates but the 6 week thing is a pile of tosh...

i actually made an appointment with my gp to get the ok to drive and she looked at me like i had two heads. She said do you feel ok to drive, i said yes and that was it.

it is propaganda. good word

I was advised (or, told, more or less) to have an elective c-section as dd was breech, and ecv was not even a consideration due to her position.

I have never regretted this decision, and I found the entire experience entirely pleasurable. (In a non-sadistic manner, of course). I trusted the advice of the clinicians. However, the one thing I would say, is that now I come to the point where I am considering another baby, and I definitely have a fear of vaginal birth. I often wonder whether I would opt for a cs next time purely for reasons of 'better the devil you know'.

And my cs was performed at the hospital Lulu practices as a doula! She gives such wonderful advice, yet still the very hospital that she works with, did not encourage me to consider any option other than a cs.

I'm not saying this is wrong, just that in the mind of my consultant, it didn't even seem to be an option. So I never challenged it.

Sometimes it can be difficult to breastfeed after an elective c-section because the birth hormones may not have kicked in to stimulate lactation.

Sometimes it's fine.

It's all food for thought though. There are risks both ways. As long as the mother is well informed enough to make her own decision, then that's great. It's the well informed bit that to me seems to be lacking because there are many parties out there that don't give the full picture. Consultants and some MNers included.

Ultimately though I consider a VB to better for the baby if everything is straightforward and at no risk to the mother's life. Before I get jumped on for being narrow minded.

To me it's worrying how C-section is becoming the norm in countries like Brazil. There's a great book by Michel Odent about the rise of the caesarian. Some very interesting points in there. Will get link... . .

sorry should've added, i made the appointment cos i was desperate to drive less than a week after the CS

but, WW..,. brazil has a massive cosmetic surgery industry.... enormous!!!

cheesesarnie on Fri 27-Jun-08 13:06:05
'athene-you said ' I say "propoganda" because some of what is preeched is not medical fact (i.e. you won't be able to breastfeed, you can't drive for 6 weeks, you can only have two sections in your life). These things are simply not true.'

so what is true and what are the facts?im genuinly interested,not argueing btw'

Breastfeeding- I had several friends who believed this and didn't try breastfeeding in consequence.

I actually found it easier to establish breastfeeding with ds (born at 36 weeks through emergency section) than with dd (vaginal delivery).

There are risks to cs but that is just what they are, risks, not certainties. The way women are clubbed over the head with these risks makes it a lot more frightening when the reality can be very different. And remember, some women have no choice in the matter.

I had 2 cs. In each case, I recovered almost completely from this 'major' surgery within 5 days, driving within 2 weeks, bf-ed within an hour and still bf-ing at 21 months. There is every chance of a good outcome for cs and don't see the need for scaremongering.

I'm not a fan of elective c-section or of home birth

My very first priority when giving birth was to incur the minimum risks to my own body/health and that of my baby. Pain was not an issue (I could deal with it), nor modesty, nor timing. I wanted to recover as quickly as possible and for my body to look the same after becoming a mother as it did before.

I gave birth in a big hospital with a large neo-natal unit, completely naturally, at 40+4 when nature decided. I have no scars and the only, very minor, change to my body is slightly crepey tummy skin - from pregnancy rather than labour.

Yes, there is a risk having a HB, however, only women without medical conditions/ complicated pregnancies are allowed to try in most trusts. I was one of those women who had to transfer and still ended up with a C section under GA. I also tried to VBAC and ended up with a second c-section under spinal. My spine has never recovered from the effects of a nerve injury due to a poorly piositioned epidural with dd1. I have a horrendous scar where the second wound became infected and healed badly. As a theatre nurse I would opt for the natural route every time.
To me its a bit like saying I don't want to take the pill or use contraceptives so I'll book a hysterectomy, when laparoscopic sterilisation would be better and less painful. IYSWIM Overkill and unnecessary IMO.

Oops! positioned

Blueshoes I hope you practiced an emergency stop before taking to the wheel at 2wks. IME its people like you who end up back in hospital with ruptured scars. Internal healing is not complete at 2 wks and most good drs would not give you permission to drive. This invalidates your insurance.

I am not a fan of c-section as mine also nearly ended in tragedy. My DD was fine but I went into PPH and lost 4 units of blood before anyone noticed I was very poorly. Then went into 2.5hrs surgery when they removed 100ml of blood clots, any of which could have killed me had they reached my brain.

I then lost over 60% of my ability to clot leaving me at very high risk. My haemoglobin went down to 7 which is so very low, even lower than some poor people who have to go through the hideousness of chemo. I could not breast feed as was too poorly and had to stay in hospital for a week an look after a new 9.5lb baby even though I was not even fit to stand for more than 5 mins. Oh, on top of that the iron meds they gave me shot my blood pressure up so high it was very dangerous.

So, I would avoid a section at ANY cost.

Baby was fine however which is all that matters, I expressed for 12 weeks so managed to stop feeling such a failure at that stage.

tori, i started driving at 10 days post CS. I sat in the car and tried an emergency stop first. I did not have a diastasis recti so my abdominals were in comparatively good shape and i could achieve a good transversus contraction thus was able to protect my incision pretty well.

youcannotbeserious Exactly as I said to Blueshoes. Had you practiced slamming both feet into the ground as hard as possible to emulate an emergency stop. Driving the car is the easy part. IMHO driving before 3wks is bloody irresponsible to other road users.

yes tori32, my test of when I could get back behind the wheel was whether I could do an emergency stop. It is as much for MY and passengers' safety as it is for other road users.

why the 3 weeks? would one minute before be irresponsible and one minute after ok?

I have 2 cs, both very positive experiences. Breast fed both babies with no problems. I am currently pg with no 3 and have been advised that a cs is the safest option. I drove after 5 weeks with the first cs and 3 weeks after the second (seemed to recover quicker second time despite having a toddler in tow)

The thing is that practicing an emergency stop you will never slam your feet down as fiercely as the real thing, or as quickly. Its totally different when you know its about to happen because you have time to prepare the muscles before moving your legs IYSWIM. In a real situation you would lose the gaurding which naturally happens during a practice. There is a massive risk of the scar rupturing.

I think driving at 2 weeks is quite common. I drove a 2 weeks after DD and 3 weeks after DS. I was bored stiff and couldn't stand being couped up in the house any longer.

The facts?

Breastfeeding. Haveing a section does not prevent you from breastfeeding. It might delay your milk for about a day because the hormones haven't really kicked in. But delaying if for a day is hardly the same as saying you can't breastfeed.

Driving we have already discussed.

I think the limit for how many you can have seems to vary wildy among consultants. I personally would say 3 is about my comfort limit. But there are certainly people who have had 5 or even 6.

Suey2- there is a fair chance that at 3wks most internal healing would be complete and it would just be the stomach muscles thatn were weak. At under that you could easily rupture the scar. Some people need as long as 6wks. The thing is that obviously you can't see internally. You might feel fine but that doesn't mean everything is normal inside.

I don't think there are any hard and fast rules. Listen to your body. If something hurts, stop doing it.

I was pretty serious about making sure I was really able to perform an emergency stop and I think I probaly slammed the brake on harder than I ever do when actually driving.

me too, athene.
Tori, although i agree that you do use your stomach muscles when performing an emergency stop, i don't agree that you would massively increase your intra-abdominal pressure in the same way as if you were, for example, lifting something extremely heavy. I also don't emergency stop with both feet! Most of the force should come from your glutei, not by increasing IA pressure: and if you have a godd transversus contraction that will stabilise the abdomen and support the incision surely?

Reading everyone's different experiences, it seems there are good experiences with CS, good with VB, bad with CS and bad with VB. It is an unpredictable scenario who will get what. How can anyone confidently say VBs are safer to those who have had very sadly had a VB experience resulting in their baby being brain damaged.

Tori32, I am sorry to hear of your bad experience, but was your CS an emergency CS rather than an elective?

From what I gather, nobody has an enjoyable emerg CS as by that point it's generally about speed. By contrast an elective CS can be calm and controlled as it is planned. I feel that some or most of the negative comments are about emergency CS's, and in people's minds they become "CS's: general" whereas I view emerg CS and elect CS as two very different state of affairs.

Harpsichord, with regard to your earlier post, I respect your opinion however I can't agree with your statement of "how many women dying of childbed fever would have been alive if there had been a CS procedure = absolutely NONE."

I'm not being funny... (AngelDoll gets funny)... but how could you possibly know with such certainty that squillions of births the world over in the past XXX amount of years would never have benefitted from a CS? Not even 1?!

Also if the woman was dying of childbed fever due to infection that shows that VBs back then ALSO carried risks of infection. Or how many women dying of childbed fever would have been alive if VB was the perfect birth experience that didn't carry any risks of its own = absolutely none. Like I say, childbirth is risky full stop.

Anyway, lets not dwell on the past, fortunately childbed fever is less common than it was in the bad old days so not so relevant to an elective CS debate in 2008...

Surely it's a matter of personal choice, just as breastfeeding, using disposable or reusable nappies and everything else concerning having children?

If a person chooses to have an elective CS they shouldn't be judged -it's their choice and hopefully they have made this choice with the best of intetions with full knowledge of their medical situation.

Personally if I was advised that there would be a small chance that I would need an emergency CS I would opt for an elective CS.