I totally agree, the hospital has no say in whether you have a c-section or a natural birth. I made my choice with my obgy and told the hospital that's what was going to happen.
I'm sorry, in your case that might be true but in many it's not. I have a cousin who is now a paediatrician and she told me when she was doing obs and gynae they were FREQUENTLY told to advise a section when it was getting lat either in the evening or the week... It's not a comfortable truth but it IS the truth, NOT ALL women who have sections needed or wanted them. I'm not talking about breeches or twins which without a willing and skilled careprovider ARE better delivered surgically, i'm talking about healthy women having normal labours who are subjected to unnecessary interventions. My cousin even told me at one hospital the Obs joked about the "tea-time push-along" - at 4pm they reviewed all labouring women to see who they could augment and get the babies out before 8pm shift-change. How many sections a day came about because of that? How many sections that women neither wanted nor would have NEEDED if they had been able to labour normally?

This is not ABOUT it being "right" or "wrong" to elect a c-section, this is about women having a REAL CHOICE in who they choose to go to for their births. If i want a natural birth i should be able to find a place to get that (fortunately i have already discovered i live in that place - my home!), just as if a woman wants or needs a c-section she should have access to the stats about where to get that.

I don't understand why people don't want the information out there. If YOU don't want to know you needn't look, but why can't i know? Why can't another woman making different choices have access to the information that would help her do that? What does it cost one woman if another wants to know how her hospital stacks up statistically?

Bx