Sometimes I look back on my birth history and wonder why God allowed me to have so many different birth experiences. My first birth was a C-section after 2 days of labor because the baby still hadn’t arrived and they doctor was tired of waiting. It wasn’t an emergency. Ten years later my daughter had a umbilical cord prolapse and I was rushed into an emergency C-section under general anesthetic. In between those two births I had a hospital VBAC which was okay, but not ideal, and then two wonderful homebirths. My husband also delivered the stillborn baby we were expecting at home as well. Last year, because the policies on VBACs have tighened I had a scheduled C-section for medicolegal reasons. I could have delivered that baby, but not without a hassle from hospitals and physicians. In a way, when it comes to birth, I’ve almost done it all.
I’ve read on some blogs and message boards lately that some young women consider a C-section to be just another birth option. No big deal. Of course having celebrity moms like Britney Spears sign up voluntarily for one just because she was afraid of vaginal birth doesn’t help much. And so another generation of women become convinced that their bodies can’t do it, that C-sections are the way to go.
Women, are mammals. We don’t see cats, dogs, cattle, or other mammals who are unable to deliver naturally. Of course, some little annimals are lost at birth, but not 24% of them. And yet that is what the C-section rate in this country has risen to again – about 25% of all births are delivered by C-section. So if it’s not something that has to do with poor body design I think it should give young women pause when they are told they must, or should, or will probably need a C-section.
Here are some things I have recently read:
I had people trying to tell me to have it naturally. I chose to trust the doctor—she was concerned with my safety and the baby’s
That may be true and I think the majority of doctors do have the mothers and babies’ best interests at heart. However, it would be very foolish to not recognize that doctors are practicing in a very litiginous society, where their very motives and actions are always under close scrutiny. Because of this procedures and interventions are put on women for the sake medicolegal reasons, and not necessarily for purely physiologic or medical needs. Doctor’s don’t as a rule, get sued for unnecessary C-sections! What I’m saying is there are other motives that are motivating OBs to perform surgery.
My doctor told me that it was likely I would have to have a c-section.
It should make question why a physician would tell a nulliparous woman that she can’t deliver normally? Is there a preivous medical condition preventing safe passage through the birth canal such as a pelvic abnormality, or previous uterine surgery? And what exactly would be the harm in allowing a trial of labor first with the hopes of avoiding major abdominal surgery and all of its risks?
It doesn’t matter how the baby is born:
C-section is major abdominal surgery. It carries with it increased risks of bleeding and infection as well as possible damage to the bladder and bowel. C-section babies also have more breathing irregularities because they mucus in their respiratory systems aren’t squeezed out during the birth process. Additionally, C-section moms need narcotic medications after delivery for pain control, and the discomfort of having an abdominal incision, makes position the baby, moving around, even going to the bathroom difficult.
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A lot of women in the past have suffered horribly and died because that option was not available to them.
Interestingly, the recent increase in the C-section rate has not improved infant or maternal mortality or morbidity.
Isn’t what goes on in the eighteen+ years following the birth a lot more important than C-section vs. vaginal?
Of course, there is more to parenting than just giving birth. But let’s not negate the importance of birth to the woman. There are physiologic and hormonal changes that occur during normal childbirth that benefit the baby and the mother. Women who have uncomplicated vaginal births are able to take care of themselves and their children much better and much sooner immediately after birth. There is also an endorphine rush that comes over you after you have given birth naturally. After the birth of my 4th son at home, I just wanted to take a shower, eat a chicken dinner, and laugh and hold my son. Unfortuantely my husband and caretakers were too tired to comply with that!! It’s the way God designed the act of giving birth.
Of course C-sections can be life saving. My first daughter absolutely had to have one because of her cord prolapse. I’m grateful for that. But C-sections in my opinion are being pushed on women unnecessarily. And to hear that some women who have never even had babies before are having seeds of doubt planted in their minds of their ability to birth their own babies is just disgusting in my opinion.