Caesarians are bad - Michel Odent now

[Welshmum]

He's about to do an interview on BBC radio 5Live (11am Tuesday) about elective c-sections inflicting babies with 'an impaired capacity for happiness'. Should be interesting....

I would go to great lengths to avoid a C-section -- but I turned off Odent when I realised he was on (I'm normally a 5-Live addict). He winds me up no end.
Didn't realise he was French, though; I could barely understand what he was saying! "Mee-shell Oh-dant!"

Hercules: it's an oxytocin thing. Odent (the 2 minutes I listened to) was saying that there are reams of studies showing that Oxytocin is the hormone of non-erotic "love". If you have a planned C-sec neither baby nor mother get the big dose of oxytocin that a """natural""" birth would deliver to each.
Even if oxytocin does have this wonderful function, it's like saying that my kids having 2 servings of vegetables tonight will lead to better life-long health than average -- sure, it may contribute to their health, may even be statistically correlated, but there's so much more that needs to happen to an individual to effect their whole lives.

And I can't be the only person who is wondering that , yet again, women are being told what to do in labour by a man. In the 60's women were bullied into high intervention deliveries, and now another man is pushing us in the other direction by inducing guilt with his half arsed, badly thought out, pseudo science. Strewth, haven't we got enough to feel guilty about as it is?????

Don't think he could understand what anyone else was saying to him either. Certainly had a few problems catching on to sarcasm, even when it was pointed out to him (nothing to do with the famous french sense of humour I'm sure - ducks to avoid attacks from french mumsnetters )

by elective I meant women who choose (esp 1st time birth) to have a section for personal non medical reasons say... Sorry I am not up on the very definitions as not encountered it before.
I totally understand women who have had diabolicla first time experiences to opt for another c section or if awful vag delivery first time, to then opt for it nest tiem, it is more being confounded by women who choose for the first baby to have one.
Prob asking for it here, maybe I am naive and just dim because I have been lucky enough to have 2 positive experiences, but I focussed hard for them as far as I can see!
And oxytocin not being present in vag births, does induction compromise it at all do you think?
Still of the opinion that the hormone issue he mentioned was a little flimsy to say the least and yes the whole guilt about birth thing is getting out of hand.
At the end of the days these are our bodies and our babies, they are nothing to do with anyone else in reality!

I agree it's flimsy, and I should be crosser than anyone with Odent because I am one of those women who had a truly 100% lifesaving section for placenta praevia, but I still think he has some good points to make - and he does say that he thinks sections are better than forceps deliveries, that sections are safe, and often necessary. He does suggest that unless otherwise indicated (ie in cases of pp) it should be possible for women to go into labour first before they have a section - just to get the hormones going. I think some of his stuff is bonkers, but also agree that it can't help anyone to be bullied into intervention, early induction, lots of people in the room and bright lights etc etc. I think he goes to the other extreme, but without the active birth movement and people like him women would still be undergoing conveyor belt births on their backs, no option of pools etc. I think all pioneers tend to be a bit loopy. As I said before, I had a section, loved it and would have it again by choice, so I obviously don't buy into his philosophy wholesale, and I have spoken to him and told him I had a section and he didn't say anything about my baby being damaged. Mind you, he probably wouldn't dare!

Kiwisbird, there are only two categories of sections with names and they can both be really misleading - ie emergency can mean either a real crash section - ie like Madonna and Sophie Wessex had with a placental abruption, which is done incredibly fast when the mother and/or baby are in danger or a decision taken relatively calmly in labour when it doesn't progress. Elective just means planned in advance. I had one of those, but my baby will almost certainly have died without it and I might have too. Yet it can also apply to women who choose a c-section for any reason.

I really think it's time M.O. was given a nice shiny medal for all he's done for choices in labour then steered in to his back garden to a nice potting shed and a consuming interest in orchids. He clearly has too much time on his hands and cannot let go of being in the spotlight. He is making women feel guilty and I agree that HMB sums it up perfectly in her first post.

Aloha a quick question how do I stack up, elective/emergency. 1st time Pre-eclampsia at 27 weeks, I was in hospital for a few days, knowing I would have to have a c-section, but didn't know when. They only made the desision an hour before I went to Theatre? I didn't PLAN to have a section or choose a date, I didn't have a choice. 2nd time in hospital as waters were leaking, it was agreed the baby was not engaged, although I could be induced it was 'unlikely' the baby would come naturally. I had a section??

Sorry I am being pedantic, but I am genuinely interested

amazing though if the labour induces the oxytocin then what about emergency sections? my dd was stuck in the birth canal , had to be ppushed back up for a section. Would those few extra cms made her happier?? its crap

Humm... according to this , this and this , Madonna had elective C-section first time... it was reported here that she intended to deliver Lourdes by C-section from 5 months pregnant. 2nd baby was emergency C-Sec due to placenta abrupture, though, all the soures are agreeing on that.

All labours involve oxytocin - oxytocin is what makes labour labour. It's a hormonal process. Fio2, you will have had lots of oxytocin during the process of labour and birth. Odent (whatever you think of his theory and I don't think much of it) is talking about c-sections without labour.
Crunchie -first one def elective. Were you in labour for your second? If not, elective again I think, though Mears may contradict me.
Mrs Grump, I wouldnt be a bit surprised if madonna had chosen to have a section out of pure choice first time - though I don't know - and neither do the writers of those medical reports. I am very sceptical about people who use celebs to support their anti-c-section beliefs esp after a midwife stood up at a conference and cited Patsy Kensit as a bad example to women for having a section, when she actually had pre-eclampsia with her second and he was in hospital and quite ill after an emergency section. I thought it was extremely unprofessional of her to slag her off when she had no idea of the clinical issues around the birth.

saw madonna in that dreadful arty stage production she was in a couple of years ago, she has NO HIPS

I have no hips , but its no indication of birth skill!
LOL
Thank god!

steady bundle
beety worked on that show

oops
ahem - what I meant was SHE was bad. really

actually it was ok - mad-donna was the only dodgy bit

My section was done in a pretty similar situation to yours Cruncie but was classified as emergency on my notes. I was admitted at 40+weeks with high bloood pressure, which had been being treated for several weeks but was now very high and I was on pretty much the maximum dose of everything, but no other symptoms of pre-eclampsia. Was told I'd be monitored and then probably induced and was taken up for induction that night. Was put on machine to have BP monitored every 10 minutes, which showed it was getting higher and higher. Registrar and midwives seemed to start to panic a bit and reg phoned consultant, who said that I should have a c section. They then tried to use lots of IV beta blockers to get my BP down before surgery but when it didn't work I was just taken to theatre.
Therefore I was neither in labour and nor was it a particular rush as they had time to try to bring down bp. I thought it was classed as emergency as it hadn't been planned in advance, I had to have bloods done very quickly and I hadn't been starved. If you only knew one hour in advance then I would have thought that your 1st would probably be classed as emergency too (hate disagreeing with aloha as always think I must be wrong!), and your 2nd certainly.
Seems like there must be a sort of grey area, whoch probably has something obscure to do with hospital procedure so would be interested to know what mears says.

with dd1 I got to 8cm, foetal blood sample showed her to be acidotic therefore couldn't wait another couple of hours to come out, so was sort-of an emergency & had to come out though it was quite calm & signed consent etc (v shaky!)
dd2 - proper (!) crash c/s, no consent, bp, pulse dropped dramatically so she was born about 10 minutes after c/s first suggested, and I had a general anaesthetic. never crossed my mind not to tell people what I had, but I'm not a celeb!

First was failure to progress, after 2 days of labour. Dd's head position was such that she would not have come out. I also had pre eclampsia, with visual disturbances.

Ds was going to be an elective anyway, but he made it 100% sure by being big and a footling breech. I also had pre eclampsia with platelets, liver function tests and reflexes all to pot.

Was lucky enough to avoid a general both times.

Wow, aloha, that's at least the 2nd time today we agreed on something! When Sophie (Wessex) had her baby the "Too Posh to Push" brigade fired up again, too, sigh, and it was so unfair.

wow, hmb, that's a royal flush...

Croak I agree there should be a third sort of c-section. One that isn't planned, but is considered necessary even if labour hasn't started. I always thought Elective was pre-planned with the date arranged at 37 ish weeks. Emergency covered everything else, but who knows. Perhaps we could call it a pre-emergency c-section - one that is decided before things go pear shaped