Can anyone recommend a leaflet/website re. Pros and cons of ELCS?

[Thandeka]

Had extremely traumatic vaginal birth last time. Leaning towards ELCS next time. H doesn't seem keen and turns out he has funny ideas including thinking it's a general anaesthetic and they cut a huge cross in your stomach to get baby out! Haha. I have clarified these with him but want some proper informed Reading for him including details of the procedure, pros and cons, recovery etc.
Thanks

NICE should have some pdf files on their website of patient information leaflets.

The RCOG guidelines are helpful too.

Hi thandeka -

The full (very long) current NICE guidelines are here - www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/live/10940/29334/29334.pdf

They are currently being revised, and a summary of the draft recommendations are here - www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/live/12156/54552/54552.pdf

Getting clear info about the risks of ELCS is actually very hard, I'm afraid - CSection info is usually all lumped together, so you have low risk planned ELCS's mixed up with high risk planned CS's and then very high risk EMCS's. Obviously that skews information.

The latter link (draft guidelines) is interesting because it addresses this to some degree. If you skip to the end! there are comparisons of risk between PLANNED CS and PLANNED VB. This means that the planned CS group contains a few VBs, and the planned VB group contains EMCS's.

Previously (and in the current patient info) you just get a comparison between CS and VB. But of course most CS's are emergency... a low risk planned ELCS is a very different picture.

The current NHS patient info is here - www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/live/10940/29336/29336.pdf

If you look at the risks of (all) CS outlined there, it's quite a different picture to the more recent info about ELCS in the draft guidelines.

CS's are a very emotive subject. Like all births, you'll find good and bad accounts. Most CS's are EMCS's, and most EMCS's are traumatic and involve problems for mothers and babies, so that's something to remember if someone is giving you anecdotal info.

Why not ask him to read this thread? There are lots of positive stories on it.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/childbirth/1233932-A-personal-account-of-elective-caesarian

It can be difficult to find leaflets which list the positives of elcs, because the NHS tends to discourage them for financial and ideological reasons.

I will get him to read that thread and this one! Think I have some more reading to do too!
Thankyou so much.