Should elective C sections for no reason be allowed?

[Dori92]

Just curious on people’s opinions on this.

Would like to point out I’m not opting for an elective section.

Thanks 💞

You’re missing my point - you’re describing situations where something has gone wrong with a natural birth (which I’ve never said doesn’t happen) and interventions, including surgical interventions, have saved lives. That’s fine. I’m not against that. But that doesn’t mean that surgical birth equals safer birth - it means in those situations it helped, but surgical birth doesn’t need to be an option for pregnancies with no medical need for it and nothing has gone wrong. There are endless risks to c section - infection, sepsis, poorer start to life for baby, risk of blood clots, risks to blood pressure dropping, lengthier recovery, issues with internal scarring and riskier births in the future, and more. Through the modern medicalised approach to birth, women are being misled to think that labour is inherently unsafe and they need to have surgery to mitigate this risk. As I said in my last post, majority of people who have stories of natural birth going wrong, haven’t in fact had a natural birth because they’ve had inductions or epidurals which impact labour and it’s success resulting in emergency interventions and leading to that woman then retelling her ‘natural birth is so dangerous’ story.

Several of the things you describe here are also perfectly natural processes. Nothing artificial about cataracts or bad knees! And plenty of humans have no choice but to manage without the surgery for either.

The distinction you want to create here doesn't actually exist, it's simply a personal preference dressed up as logic.

So you think pregnancy (not a disorder, not a symptom, but reproduction to continue the human race that is ended after giving birth) is akin to something that is some form of disease (causes symptoms, will continue to be present unless there is treatment)? The distinction is very clearly there. The problem is people viewing pregnancy/birth as some kind of illness that needs medical treatment (again as I’ve said I’m talking about when nothing is going wrong, which is the majority of the time in a natural birth).

No, I know that they're both natural processes. It was you, not me, who decided to try and make that the dividing line. I would never have done that because it's a really poor argument. Something being a natural process clearly doesn't say anything at all about whether surgery will be the more or less beneficial option than letting nature take its course.

Ultimately, all you are doing here is making a value judgement about need. It's backed by nothing other than feelings, and thus there's no reason for anyone else to draw the line where you do.

Of course maternal choice c-sections should be allowed. Maternal choice is important.

It's no different to a woman making the decision to have a home birth.

I have had friends and relatives who could choose endoscopy, colonoscopy, heart investigations, wisdom teeth removal, etc under a GA if they wanted too, instead of a local, all in the name of less pain/not wanting to be aware of having the test.

So yes, I do think women should have the choice as to whether they would like an elective c section, it's possible for most other procedures, so why not this!

Surely most breech babies are delivered by elective c-section these days?

Again - it depends what you mean by "no reason" - does trauma from a previous birth count?

My so called "natural birth" involved more medical intervention than a c-section (6 blood transfusions, 60 stiches, NICU, emergency surgery and HDU for me) and all because of a rabidly "pro natural birth" consultant (not in UK) who refused to induce/refused c-section and let me go 2 weeks overdue with pre-eclampsia because of her belief that birth is a natural process.

It was at the hospital that was forced to stop the study into allowing women to go 3 weeks overdue because of the number of deaths.

Would I have been wrong to choose a c-section for birth 2?

Again. What do you count as. ‘No reason’?

There’s nothing nasty about challenging someone who believes women shouldn’t have bodily autonomy

There is no such thing as a section for no reason. Maternal choice is a reason.

Natural births are appropriate for those who are low risk and have no issues. That doesn’t sound like it was the case for you if you had pre eclampsia, so clearly you would have benefitted from some intervention earlier. Sorry you had such a bad experience. Yes I believe you should be able to choose if you wanted a c section in the future as you had medical reasons - you’re far more likely to have pre eclampsia again in a future pregnancy and you obviously haemorrhaged so that risk is significantly increased in a future birth. So you have valid medical reasons.

But can’t you see that forcing a women who does not want a ‘natural’ birth for any reason to have one is unlikely to result in either a completely intervention free birth or a mother with great mental health/absence of trauma?

We’re not in an ‘ideal’ natural world of births where babies are being borne to healthy slim women with good hips under 25 who decline all pain relief and have constant attention from caring competent well trained medical professionals.!

Instead as mentioned above, the rates of natural no interventions whatsoever birth for first time mothers at many hospitals are well below 50 per cent. Many women looking at these statistics and their personal health situation will decide they’d rather choose the intervention up front of c section, rather than the uncertainties of ventouse, forceps etc. Apart from anything else, many women prefer the prospect of stitches in their abdomen while fully anaesthetised to stitches in their private parts with inadequate anaesthesia!!

Hospital at centre of inquiry pursued ‘natural birth’ ideology

https://www.thetimes.com/article/f3af9956-1184-4a1b-ac56-715e88ae5cbe?shareToken=52d4e659beb44f17dee3a107a9bf024e

Therr are also endless risks to so-called natural birth, including the cerebral palsy that my friend's baby was left with. We induce for a reason, it's because babies die more frequently when we don't. We give women epidurals because we are civilized, and don't think that we should have to labour for hours in agony without effective pain relief. And just because a woman with no apparent medical need for a section has one, it doesn't mean that something mightn't have gone wrong with her 'natural' birth. I think we'll have to agree to differ here.

I had an elective section for my first (and likely only) baby. I'm a doctor who, having worked in obs and gynae for 6mths during my training, much preferred the idea of a controlled, calm and overall extremely safe planned c-section over a vaginal delivery with 50% chance of needing instrumentation/emergency c section. Everyone bangs on about caesareans being "major surgery" but I only needed paracetamol by the next day (when I went home) and I'd have one again in a heartbeat. Didn't destroy my pelvic floor either, unlike many of my friends during vaginal delivery, some of whom are still incontinent of urine years later. The statistics on risk in c-section takes into account both planned and emergency procedures so overestimates risk for the former. If the NHS had more resources, I think more women would be encouraged to have a planned section. Men wouldn't go through labour you know!

This. With my first delivery my local hospital had a militant vaginal birth policy despite my being 40, with preeclampsia. They induced me and in so doing they nearly killed me and my baby, with a crashed C-section. Had I been permitted an elective C-section from the start, the whole thing would have been safer.

Because you’d prefer that to a huge tear in your vag and the multiple of other risks associated with vaginal birth, particularly with advanced maternal age? My son was breech presentation, so I had an elective C (privately, as it happens) He’s my only child: but I wouldn’t change a thing if I were ever to do it again (which I won’t).

I think women should have the choice. Obviously emergencies will be prioritised over non emergencies.

Saying that as a mother who had 1 hospital induction and 2 home births. What’s right for me isn’t right for every woman.

Yes. If we tell women they have choice in how they give birth, it has to be full and free choice. You can have any birth you want as long as it’s the one I say you can have is not choice.