Cesarean has been on the brain lately, primarily because of an extensive back and forth email conversation with a neighbor (more on that conversation later, if I get around to it) who had lost a baby and was advocating more intervention to reduce the rate of stillbirth. I did not in any way mean to be disrespectful of her grief (I grew up in a family who lost a toddler) but when I hear of unwarranted intervention, I think rising cesarean rate, and find it hard to hold my tongue. The reality is that births with a number of medical interventions do have a higher chance of ending in cesarean (the snowball effect of intervention) and that cesarean section can be deadly for mom and baby. If we begin unnecessary interventions before labor even begins, anticipating stillbirth in a healthy normal pregnancy, we make birth pathological.
Here is a good article on the risks of cesarean which asks a very good question, why isn't this subject getting the media attention it deserves? Cesarean Triples Neonatal Death Risk. The link to the study sited in the post ishere.
A thought provoking article on planned cesarean from theCanadian Medical Association. The Canadians, by the way, do seem to be a bit more enlightened. Not only are theydiscouraging automatic cesarean for breech birth, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC) also does not restrict vaginal birth after 2 cesareans (VBA2C) only to those with a prior vaginal birth.
Cesarean has been on the brain lately, primarily because of an extensive back and forth email conversation with a neighbor (more on that conversation later, if I get around to it) who had lost a baby and was advocating more intervention to reduce the rate of stillbirth. I did not in any way mean to be disrespectful of her grief (I grew up in a family who lost a toddler) but when I hear of unwarranted intervention, I think rising cesarean rate, and find it hard to hold my tongue. The reality is that births with a number of medical interventions do have a higher chance of ending in cesarean (the snowball effect of intervention) and that cesarean section can be deadly for mom and baby. If we begin unnecessary interventions before labor even begins, anticipating stillbirth in a healthy normal pregnancy, we make birth pathological.