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?

I agree - I would never judge someone for having a c-section. However, I'm not sure it should be a casenof 'personal choice' and that we should encourage women weho are approaching birth for the first time to fear a natural, vaginal delivery. That seems very wrong to me.

A society in which as many as a quarter of women are having sections (which is where we are now)...? Where some quarters of the medical profession seem to opt for a c-section almost as an easy option (outrageous!)...Something wrong somewhere there, to, methinks.

(And I've had a section, so not being Miss Judgy Judgy).

too, not to. Excuse typos.

IMO it's the mother's who recount their horror stories about labour to a pregnant woman that encourage them to fear a natural birth.

Each pregnancy and each persons medical situation when they have a baby, and armed with the information about their own situation I think it is a case of personal choice as to what to do with the medical advice given to them about their pregnancy and labour options.

There are numerous medical reasons why a person might be advised to have an elective CS and I wouldn't want to necessarily share my medical history with someone to explain why I was having an elective CS!

Doesn't the very fact that csections are available for most mothers in this country, if necessary, skew the statistics re. safety of vaginal births though?

By definition, the statistics for vaginal deliveries do not include those labours where complications arise and the mother has to be given a section.

In other words, if c-sections were not available then all statistics re. the safety of vaginal births would plummet because the safey net of the surgical route had been taken away?

tori32 - i don't disagree with your sentiment, i really don't, but to put a blanket arbitary statement on how long a woman should wait post CS (1 week, 3 weeks 6 weeks) seems daft to me.

I was perfectly fine after 12 hours. I walked my son to the nursery to bath him the morning after my CS. Even the midwives were . I kid you not, I felt fine. The hospital weren't going to take any chances so they kept an eye on me, but they let me bath my son.

I carried my son (in his car seat) into the house 3 days afterwards. And then I took the dog for a walk.

Could everyone do this? I don't for a second suppose so, but women ought to be allowed to recover at their own rates. Some women may not feel able to drive after 6 weeks. That ought to be their right.

I suppose where I'm really going with this, is in this modern world of surgery (plus ALOT of cosmetic stuff) surely us empowering women ought to be including all of the options - not just the natural ones.

Again, I'd like to state: I am NOT anti VB. For me, whatever floats your boat. For me, it was a CS. Of course, I don't think the negatives should be glossed over, but neither do I think it should be belittled. It has a place in modern society.

I don't think offering routine sections is 'empowering women'. I think it's feeding into the idea that vaginal birth is gruesome, frightening, disgusting and generally to be avoided.

i also wonder what factor age would have in all this. A VB may well have been easier for me had i been 15 or 20 years younger and so many women are having children at an older age? just a thought. It may have something to do with the rates going up.

i just have to say, your not being unreasonable. women on this thread like to pick on people who want epidurals/e.c sections and anything else that might make things 'easy' for some. i think sometimes people forget that the pain of labor/child birth and the word 'natural' doesn't make you a good mother. just because i want to be a mother doesn't mean i have to be a martyr...however most of the women who have e.c.sections/epidurals (by choice to start off with) don't seem to judge those planning natural child births.

i definitely respect those women. i just wonder why some of them can't respect me back.

mrs mattie i heard far more horror stories about CS than VB.

I think that my issue would be that it is informed choice needed. If you have done your research, and know what the risks and benefits are, then it is your perogative to choose. But so many pregnant women are ill-informed. And some people are more equipped to inform themselves than others.

Assumptions are made that private=better. Most of my patients who have discussed private care have been shocked and horrified to learn that the response in an emergency within a private hospital would be to dial 999! Don't get me wrong, here. If you are fully aware that you will be in a hospital without intensive care facilities, or senior doctors on site at night, and want to pay for that care, go for it. But I feel for those patients who buy into private care only to find that it is the same NHS doctors 'popping up to Sarum Road' to do their private work, and that they do not have access to the highest care in an emergency.

Who's really judging women for having c-sections or epidurals? Name one person on this thread who has said anything like that???

I'm not judging individual women. I am judging a system that says that c-sections are an easy option when things don't go exactly according to some predisposed plan of how labour is 'supposed to go', and I would certainly judge a system that allowed women to routinely opt for a c-section on their first birth without valid medical reasons. Of course, if you go private and pay you can have whatever you want with the flimsiest of reasons, even if your choice is pretty poorly thought out. I think that's pretty piss poor, too, but hey, that's the way of the world.

I totally agree YCBS. Why are some women so intent on knocking another woman's choice? Because if it goes wrong in some way it should at least have been the mother's choice and what she wanted rather than what she was scaremongered, badgered or otherwise just plain JUDGED into. It wouldn't have to be me picking up the pieces of a HB gone wrong, or a CS gone wrong, or a VB gone wrong, would it. It'd be the poor mother! If I felt I had contributed by scaremongery etc etc, to a situation which turned out to be disastrous for a mother then I would feel partly responsible and rightly so. All this stats quoting etc is a form of badgering and scaremongery too and who is to say how recent, relevant and right these stats are???

The only people who should really contribute to someone's birthing plan are the mother, partner if she wants them to, and her doctors who have seen up her fanjo, read her notes and heard her views. IMVVVHO.

Very good point suey2 re: age of women giving birth. Could the pelvic region possibly be more pliant in a person of 22, than 32 or 42? Perhaps younger women do find a VB easier for this reason and older mothers are put off.

eandz - you wil make peace with it. i felt like this and, by the time my son was due, i couldn't have given a stuff. i knew what i was doing was right for me and my family.

i don't many of us can really give an opinion other than 'this is what happened for me' whether that be good or bad...

i would like to second mrsmattie - while other threads have become very judgemental, i don't think this one has at all. i think the views have been pretty well thought out...

if your going to bring up nhs vs private...

i just know that with the nhs i have to wait weeks and have to schedule dozens of appointments just to get the care i need. with private however i can call my consultant rain or shine have my questions answered and see him or whoever is covering him at a moments notice if i need to.

for example: the first time i was pregnant my gp told me i wasn't pregnant but had pcos...until ofcourse i miscarried 4 months later...even though i had taken in a pregnancy test i'd gotten a positive on...she told me it was a false negative.

2nd example: about 13 weeks into my current pregnancy while my nhs gp was trying to get me to sign on for an amniocentisis (because she assumed i was married to my cousin...which i'm not) i started bleeding in her office. she stuck me in a broom closet with kitchen roll for 30 minutes (in the dark) until an ambulance came to take me to st marys. when i got to st marys i had to wait about 2 hours before a doctor came to see me and he told me that i had miscarried and it was better i did because it meant that the embryo probably had abnormalities which can happen often to couple who are also cousins. (the fact that i explained we weren't related about 1000 times didn't really seem to matter.) ...when they scanned us around 3pm (the bleeding started around 9am) they found that the pregnancy was still viable...but they couldn't tell me where the blood was coming from. so they sent me home with an internal bleed.

that night i found a private doctor through a friend and he answered all my questions, had me scanned and figured out why i was bleeding...in all of 2 hours.

That's great@eandz, but not everyone can afford to go private and they are no less deserving than you. I'm not knocking you, personally. I have issues with the very existence of private healthcare, but hey, that's a whole other thread!

my point was, no one deserves to be treated the way i've been treated on the nhs.

I'm not overly happy with my treatment on the NHS either, but if all those who can afford it go elsewhere, nothing will improve. But like I said - another thread!

OK, it's a different thread but here goes:

my treatment at the NHS was bloody schocking.

My Dh had a son who died 10 years ago and the NHS finallly got round to sorting out the test to see if my baby (a boy) was affected at WEEK 37. Excuse the language but: WHAT THE FUCK WAS I GOING TO DO WITH THAT? Have a termination? Give birth knowing my son would not survive? I chose to do nothing.

That's not the only example (I'd decided to go private LONG before week 37).

I'd also like to point out that 'those who can afford it' are often made to feel like SHIT for BEING on the NHS.... Though I would like to point out that 'those who can afford it' are largely those who are funding the NHS in the first place.

Oooh.. should we start a new thread?

OK, just in case the whole NHS / private thing kicks off, I want to get one thing in up front: In NO way have I ever had any problem with the people who work within the NHS system. They work very hard under terrible conditions (sometimes) and are stretched (continually).

I haven't used the NHS much apart from a couple of AN appointments and the people I saw were over worked to such a degree that it was impossible to provide the sort of care most people would like.
But the individuals were not at fault.

OK, just wanted to say that.

youcantbeserious,
if you start the private vs nhs thread i'll probably be posting on it nonstop.

but i've had problems with the people i've had to see on the nhs, for example the doctor who diagnosed my first miscarriage as a miscarriage and not a burst cyst scolded me for about 20 minutes about the right way of pronouncing my name.

i don't agree mrsmattie- with your assertion that the NHS will not improve if all that can afford it go private. How did my hellish birth experience on the NHS improve standards? It was just a hellish experience. If we have another, we will go private. If we couldn't afford it, i would sreiously think very hard about having another child at all.

Actually, i have to take that back - I've had a problem with a couple of people.

Most noteably the lovely lady who told me that if I expected to know if my PG was viable then I should pay for it (as she looked knowingly at me as to say 'you can afford it now get out of here')

And also my GP who SWORE I wasn't PG even though I was presenting ALL the symptoms (and was actually 16 weeks gone! )

Also, I have to agree with Twinkle.

The services at the portland are great. I was breast feeding my son while I was in recovery and I was monitored etc. ,the whole time.

The services were second to none.

Like Suey - if I ever have another child, I will do so privately.