SueDonim - I've been trying to get on the NCT website to give you the reference for the outrageous stuff about women who have c-s who must feel 'less of a woman' etc, but it doesn't appear to be working properly. You say that women must feel this way for the NCT to say so, but I think,why would women feel this way if it wasn't for NCT brainwashing? You say you're sick of people slagging off the NCT. Well, I'm sick of the NCT slagging off people like me who have c-sections - and I'm a paid-up member!
I see people keep raising the cost issue. I get so p... off by people blaming me for the collapse of the NHS. You know, birthing pools cost money. Birthing centres cost money. Gas and bloody air costs money. When did you last see anyone challenge those on the issue of costs? Yet none are 'essential' to deliver babies. Why are c-s so different? In any case, what about the poor babies hideously damaged by NOT having c-s? Those who suffer catastrophic injuries due to oxygen starvation? I bet just one such child costs the NHS more than all the c-s than happen in a year.
Tik Tok - you think I have a go at women who have vaginal deliveries. This thread is full of women saying they can't imagine anyone wanting to have a c-s, and yet when I say exactly the same thing about vaginal birth, you have a go - double standards, I think. As for the main costs of c-s being the aftercare, yes, and I think it's exaggerated. If I have another baby and another c-section, I shall go home a lot earlier. It wasn't so long ago that women who had vaginal deliveries were made to stay in for ten days - now you're chucked out after a few hours - times change. I certainly think I could have gone home a lot earlier. As for the safety of breech birth. No, it isn't less safe because midwives don't get the experience. It is simply less safe, and a new extensive Toronto study has proved that beyond doubt. It is a mark of the hysterical prejudice against c-section that so many people refuse to believe that c-sections can be safer than vaginal birth, even when a major study proves it to be so. And the Toronto study also showed that when c-sections were planned in advance, women were no more likely to suffer complications than with vaginal birth. I was extremely well informed about c-sections before I had mine. And I was confident that not only was I having the only possible safe birth for me and my son, but that I was much less likely to have a child damaged by the birth. I notice people talk about the risks to mothers (which I dispute) but never about the risks to babies. A good friend's first baby died during delivery, which would have lived if he'd been delivered by c-section. Another friend is still is pain ten weeks after a vaginal birth and episiotomy. Another friend's baby spend months in plaster after hip dislocation during a breech birth. I don't suppose any of them show up in the statistics about c-sections. As I said in my first post, each to their own, if you want to go into labour and relish the 'challenge' that's totally your decision. I happen to think it's horrible - and no, I'm not ill-informed, I'm as informed as anyone. But I am sick of scaremongering about c-sections. Last year some nasty and unprofessional midwife at the national conference was slagging off Patsy Kensit (by name) for have a section. Whatever you think of her, Patsy Kensit had pre-eclampsia, an emergency c-section and spent weeks in special care breastfeeding her son. I bet she was thrilled that some know-nothing midwife was attacking her in public. Sadly, I think that woman's attitude is typical of the whole c-section debate. I don't think midwives should be woman-haters. That really worries me.