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 hate all that too posh to push stuff too Mrs Grump. It almost makes me sympathise with Kate Winslet!

Technicaly my first was emergency, but it was very, very relaxed. A friend had a 'real' emergency, quite different.

so true hmb

thanks for explaining aloha, really should pay more attention!! ds was elective though so no labour for him

I always feel silly saying I had an emergency section followed up with "yeah it was really lovely and relaxed"

Was your dh there? Mine was, and looked rather dishy in his scrubs! I was so tired the first time that I was dropping off to sleep on the table, which freaked out the staff!

mine wasnt allowed in first time as it was a REAL emergency. 2nd time he looked dishy in scrubs

croak and hmb, my first 'emergency' was like that, Had horrid theartre staff and inexperienced doctor for second though

sw, were you at the whit?

Elective C/S is when there is a planned date for delivery as Aloha had for a specific reason. The reason can be clinical, previous C/S and/or maternal request.However, had Aloha's clinical situation changed prior to that date ie any bleeding then the C/S would have been brought forward which would make it an emergency.

Crunchie - your C/S were emergency. They were decided upon in response to a changing clinical situation. It can be an emergency C/S without being in labour.

Is that clearer?

Clear and precise as ever mears. 2 things I have trouble with on mumsnet and in real (well dissertation writing anyway) life

I thought you might contradict me Mears
So many people do honestly think elective means 'just fancied one' though.

So can't we invent another name for a medically necessary elective? I had an emergency first time round due to cholestasis and failed induction. So much of an emergency that I had to wait 6 hours because I'd already had breakfast. This time round I've got the cholestasis again so am having an elective at 37 weeks. I had a huge argument with my insurers today (who should know better) who are saying they don't cover elective sections. I had to explain a hundred times that it didn't mean I just fancied one - I have to deliver early and I can't be induced again because of previous c-section. Still not sure they've got the point.

message withdrawn

Prufrock - i too think that they should think of another name for an elective but medically nesercarry section. I had an electibe with dd1 because she was breech and i have a bicornuate uterus, so no room to turn her. Dd2 was classed as emergency but not that urgent iykwim, because i went into labour at 35 weeks and failed to dilate at all, and she was showing signs of distress. Ds 3 was an elective but i had no choice with him as i had already had two sections.

twiglett I know. When I explained that it was medically necessary they were trying to tell me that if it was an emergency then the NHS would be better anyway. I know that, and have left it in the hands of my consultant as to whether he feels it is medically better for me to be in NHS or private, but really really believe that if it's no earlier than 37 weeks then the benefits of actually having midwives who have time to care for me afterwards outweigh any benefits of the NHS. If I have to stay in the RLH post natal wards for 5 days I think I will go mad.

I am not going to enter in this discussion except to say one thing. In the eighties when Odent suggested birth pools to help woman labour LOADS of people and journals said that was complete madness/hippies gone crazy and all.... look at how many of us have had water births ! It is completely "normal" nowadays to ask for a water labour/birth.

As Aloha has said - we need "gurus/visonaries/challengers of convention" to create a debate and allow more choices and evolution. We don't have to agree with his stuff.... maybe he'll be proved wrong... maybe he won't. He wasn't for the birth pool

Don't forget Odent is a surgeon, he has performed thousands of sections in his career, now he does homebirths only. His approach is to let the woman labour with her doula and he comes in to "help" with the birth if need be so he is well known for not intervening in the labour (unless necessary of course) and sleeping on the sofa waiting to be needed. He is very hands off. I think Pie's aunt had him for her home birth.

Many doctors and MW still feel he has positive ideas/thoughts to bring to the childbirth debate - clearly most of you don't.

I don't think that any of us would sugest that Odents ideas were not helpful, and far thinking. However when he goes so far as to sugest that only women who have had vaginal deliveries, and who were themselves a vaginal delivery should be present at the birth (as sectioned women are 'predetory' ) then I'm sorry, but he has lost the plot, bigtime.

We would (i think) all say that low intervention, calm environments are wonderful things and should be, wherever possible the norm. But he is taking things too far when he extrapolates to the point that San Paulo is more dangerous than Amsterdam because of C sections. You might just as well correlate that speaking Spanish makes you more violent. Or that speaking Dutch predisposes you to having the sort of body that can cope with a normal low intervention birth.

He may well have other good points to make, but I'm afraid that on this particular issue his science is laughable!

I'm choosing an elective section; I'm proud of my birth choice

I'm not 'too posh too push' but if no-one can give me a cast-iron guarantee that I'm not going to rip or need an episiotomy with the after effects of painful unrination, defecation, incontinence later in life, painful sex, potential difficulty/pain in inserting tampons etc etc, then I choose an elective section.

Women should not be made to feel guilty if they want to avoid tearing. Caeserian IS a birth choice - but it's a women's choice - not one that's only available for medics to make.

Why are women who choose sections labelled incompetant; not 'real women'?

Can I say - that in my experience - midwives who never see births without pain relief don't think you can do it without pain relief, indeed I have heard MW say to my clients "I had an epidural, they are wonderful".... or "honey take some gas and air, everyone else does" his point is (I think) your experiences do cloud your judgment/approach/views of what natural childbirth should be.
BTW - unlike what some of you think - all his stuff is backed up by scientific research published in reputable medical journals like the BMJ, Lancet and New England Journal of medicine. He is not one to quote from research which is not reputable... but I am sure that won't change your views... Ok I must go to a meeting now.... not sure I want to be alone defending him either

Highlander - no one ca give you a cast iron guarantee that you won't need a hysterectomy during your section if you hemorrage (sp?).... sorry but in life there are NO caston iron guarantee! Don't mean to scare you but you have to be realistic !

I'd be facinated to read the BMJ/Lancet artice on the geography stuff! And I'm being serious not snide. If you have a link, can you post it? I'll have a quick google as well.

I would find it hard to belive that either of these would publish that info, unless he has been misrepresented. I used to have to read both of these pulications weekly in my last job!

From what I recall (and this memory) he is making an hypothesis about Amsterdam / Rio based on real section rates... (I don't think he says anywhere that this is a fact, he is launching question to the world.... is there a real risk for society to have so many - more and more - babies being born by section .... regardless of his personal hypothesis I think it is a fair question and the answer could well be no - I do think the debate is good - shouting down anyone raising the question is IMO burrying your head in the sand rather than asking question).

What he does say from medical journals are the results of sections like lower BF rates for example.

And I wouldn't argue with the BF info, sounds very rational. But he can't ask a question and then expect eveyone to say,' OK then, you are right.'

The differences between San Paulo and Amsterdam are so complex that to postulate a simple reason, like the rates of CS, is farcical and invites incredulity in the audience. The two countries don't share a common history, religious base, legal/ political base, income level, educational level, support services, so how can you make a rational scientific comparison?

If he does some matched control studies, then he might be taken a little more seriously.

No-one is shouting him down, we are answering back, a very different thing.

Hmb: a few samples...

• he should shut the F* up and find another job.
• This man should sod off.
• its crap
• isn't it time he BOGGED OFF and stopped stirring?

... to me that's shouting down (maybe we disagree on the definition)... even this post from you
Oh FFS! Good job I didn't listen to this. What a prize ass!

" As that woman said one more sodding thing to feel guilty about.

I'd show him what it feels like to have a bloody preditor in the room. Oh, sorry, I forgot, I'm OK because I was a normal delivery. Hullo clouds, hullo f-ing sky. "