The Observer's health editor says women ought to have C-sections instead of vaginal delivery.

[dizietsma]

\link{http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/news/0,,1723873,00.html\link to article}

I'm appalled. I haven't read it all the way through yet, but you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be writing to the Observer to complain about this shocking and irresponsible opinion piece.

I think the article rather rehashed a couple that the Observer ran on elective C-sections a year or so back. I didn't think it was that bad - like Blu, I thought of it as promoting a range of birth choices for women.

Me, I'm not hog-whimperingly wild about C-sections, personally, but then I'm not really hog-whimperingly wild about any of the birth options out there. My home birth had its good moments, but those were mostly the result of gas and air.

Whilst I do think choice is a good thing, I'm sorry highlander but I don't class giving birth as a medical procedure. Surely a procedure is something done to you, not something your body does itself? Birth IS natural, I say this whilst fully acknowledging that sometimes it doesn't go to plan / there are other reasons why a c-section is the best option.

I didn't have NCT classes, couldn't afford them. But the NHS classes I had didn't touch on any complications of labour that could arise. It was like, 'Oh, you'll have gas and air and then maybe you'll need other interventions but it'll all be allright.' I didn't really know what to expect - my mum and just about every female relative in my family had had csections. My sister had a VBAC, but at the time I didn't have any kids so didn't think to ask her any details.

I wound up w/epidural and then forceps delivery w/DD1 due to baby being face up and having her hand up by her head over her ear.

But tbh maybe it's just age but the most changes post partum to my body have been after DD2 - who was born after spontaneous vaginal delivery w/no pain relief (got to hospital at 9cm dilated and one puff of gas &air made me sick).

Well, Alzheimers is natural, too. Another thing I'm not hog-whimperingly wild about.

Actually, I think an emergency C-section is a damn sight more dangerous than a planned one. For all sorts of reasons. And I do see the link with Kate Winslet.

I'm defending it frightfully, aren't I? I didn't write it. Don't have proper staff job or anything.

Touche, MI! :)

Good to see you on this thread!

I've been off for a week, after getting my knickers twisted (and statistical interpretation wrong) on the epidural thread.

Ah, yes! I must say, I'd have willingly forked up £500 for mine w/DD1.

The whole thing just gave me awful flashbacks to the OJ trial, and Judge Ito ordering Johnny Cochran (RIP) and Marcia Clarke to 'get out your cheque books! Right here, right now!'

:o

"By having a planned surgical delivery, you simply avoid the biggest risk factor of all: the possibility of an emergency caesarean"

Bo!!ock$. I had a csection planned due to placenta previa. Didn't stop me having a crash section a week earlier due to massive bleed.

"The college website says: 'All births can be rewarding. Even the woman who has a caesarean section under general anaesthetic still has the miracle of a newborn baby."

All births? Well yes if you treat birth as if it's some simple process, go into labour, pop baby out, viola! lovely baby at the end of it.
But it's not that simple. And I wouldn't call bleeding heavily, being rushed into theatre, hearing the surgeon/anaethetist(sp) saying "We haven't got time, we're going straight to a GA", and being scar shitless that i was going to bleed to death, particularly rewarding

Stupid, stupid people

Didn't bother reading any further.

Female doctors usually say they'd opt for a c section because they are coming to the birth as it is encountering problems. Thought I'd read that midwives usually opt for vaginal delivery as they usually encounter problem free(ish) births.

the medicalisation of childbirth is a bad thing though isn't it? it is fantastic that we have medical options for when things go wrong, but i think awful that women are having worse labours because they are in hospital (horrible environment), they are not attended by a trusted expert woman right through their pregnancy and labour, they are party to a barrage of interventions (from inductions to prevent them giving birth on a bank holiday to totally false time limits in terms of being 'overdue' etc etc).

normal birth is MORE not less painful given all these interventions, but no one is focussing on the real problem which is production line like labour wards, no consistency of care and no sensitivity to a womans need to be able to move, to be in a surrounding that she feels safe and secure in, with people she trusts.

i know you're all going to shout at me that the medicalisation of childbirth saves lives and gives better and safer births, but that's not true: we now have techniques and options to save the life of mothers and children and to help mothers that are in distress and that of course is a good thing, a great thing. but hospitals and medical intervention as the norm is the problem not the solution in the vast majority of cases.

it says something about how crappy most women's experience of birth now is that a major operation like a c-section is seen as the easy option and a 'right' that any woman can choose.

it is insane imo.

Soph, I think there is that focus, actually, quite a lot.

And speaking as someone who had fantastic, marvellous midwifery support in her first pregnancy and an absolutely shitty labour, believe me, fabulous midwives aren't everything. A lot, but not everything.

She makes it sound as though vaginal birth is not something any of us should aspire to! I personally do not fancy the idea of caring for my newborn while recovering from major surgery. The danger with presenting childbirth as a straightforward 'option' is that it may encourage people (who would have otherwise been fine with a VBAC) to go for a c/s unnecessarily, just because they will be "guaranteed a blissful birth" or something like that... I don't think there is any debate about people for whom c/s is medically necessary, for physical/mental reasons, but why should that very expensive 'option' be funded by the NHS? I think the downsides to c/s have been underplayed in the article, as have the many positives of vaginal birth. I am a bit dubious of her 'facts' too.

MI, what's more dangerous about an emergency (not crash) cs? I had one and the op itself went pretty smoothly (from where I was lying).

The thing about the Kate Winslet quote is that IIRC, she made a big thing before the birth of her first about how women had being having babies for millions of years, she'd nearly died filming Titanic, how hard could giving birth be, etc etc and then she ended up with a cs. So she piled the guilt on herself (and I know how that feels because I did it myself too) and she didn't have a choice about the cs anyway.

trust and the healthcare establishment? opposite poles, as far as I'm concerned.

I think we need all the choices and options out there, really we do. We all bring different expectations to birth, and have different experiences of it - and actually I think most of us are not just brainwashed by an overmedicalised culture which assures us that it'll be painful and potentially dangerous, we have that on pretty good authority and tradition. I wouldn't want an elective Caesarian; if I were to have another baby, I'd want another home birth. But other women feel very differently.

Dunno, CM, don't have the stats in front of me, but I'd reckon that there's a difference between an emergency and a planned procedure. I may be talking b8llocks. I frequently am.

KW actually made me feel a total wuss for opting for an epidural, with her 'fabulous birth' story, you know.

'if I were to have another baby'

Enough with this fence-sitting, MI! :o

I agree with what Eve said, how she can happily sit there typing 'c-sections double the chance of future babies dying' and natural births 'might give you something horrendous like a prolapse' and still say CS's are better. Ridiculous. Why tamper with nature, why?! I hope that as our technology and skills increase that as a species we will realise that nature is still best....

I mean, common sense, of course an elective is better than an emergency, of course, but that doesn't give you many reasons to have an elective rather than try for a natural if you actually think through the facts logically.

Bleugh.

oh no MI!! slebs have a lot to answer for don't they??

EPIS, I am going to sit on the fence till I am just too old for this birth lark

We tamper with nature all the damn time. I avoided getting pregnant for the first few decades of my reproductive life, and I fully intend to tamper with it should I contract any of the nasty conditions which drugs can tackle, actually.

MI, I had a helluva labour too. 37 hours long and just before I delivered we had to eject the bossy midwife who almost broke my waters without my consent, but I still wouldn't swap it for an elective C-Section. Just not a fan of unecessary surgery, what can I say?

BTW for future reference, the NCT offer reduced rates for people unable to afford their classes. I was on benefits at the time and couldn't have afforded them without the reduction. Well worth the money as clearly you cannot rely on the NHS to adequately prepare you.

I totally believe in survival of the fittest.

And everyone should stop having sex if they don't want babies.

Having planned an active birth, I thought a c-section was the worst thing that could happen to me until ... I had to have an emergency-cs under GA due to foetal distress during induction. Despite the fact it was very traumatic, the recovery was fine, I was walking within a day. Didn't need pain killers after the second day. So whilst a lot is made of the 6 week recovery time and the fact it is major abdominal surgery, well, it is and it is not. For my second, I will opt for elective-cs unless the doctors can reassure me that the risk of emergency cs for VBAC is low (NOT)! But I do think advocating electives for a first birth is rather over-the-top.

And everyone should stop having sex if they don't want babies.

NO WAY! Not when there is there is the snip and female sterilisation. :o