I can't understand why time after time women are coming into this thread and saying that by asking hospitals to be accountable for the amount of c/s they do above and beyond what is acceptable is somehow an attack on their choices?
If you had a c/s out of choice, great for you, no one is attacking your right to choose. If you had an emergency c/s, well it really wasn't a choice, was it?
The TRUTH is, many women is coerced into a c/s they wouldn't normally need. We see it here on BB ALL THE TIME. Your baby is too big. You'll put your baby in danger if you have a VBAC. Your pelvis is too small. You're too overdue. You're high risk. There are too many stories where mothers are made to feel like they're putting themselves and their babies at risk by not listening to what their doctors say. Please don't pretend it's not true, because we all know that it is. Yet if you scratch the surface on the majority of these cases, none of those reasons are valid!
I had a Dr who said he was low intervention, and even he suggested at 39w that I should have a c/s, simply because I was complaining I was over it all. If I were a new mum, who had never given birth vaginally before, imagine how good that would have sounded?
And let's not ignore the fact that in my antenatal class, 8 out of 10 women were planning a c/s, variously because they believed it would be 'safer' for their babies, or they'd been told their babies were too big, or they were told that a c/s would be less painful. Why is it that that sort of information is perpetuated day after day after day, yet we as women think it's okay for us not to be informed about it?
My sister gave birth to 2 children vaginally in Singapore, then was told by her Australian ob that her pelvis was too small to deliver her 3rd baby. So she had a c/s ('elective' it said on her forms) and guess what? Her baby was not so big after all that she couldn't have delivered her naturally. My sister is hugely upset that she was scared into making a decision that was incorrect in the end. Again her story is NOT isolated. Women here on BB get it all the time, too. So imagine how many women are being told fibs like that out there.
If you don't care about whether your hospital performs far more c/s then necessary, I think it's your prepogative to ignore any stats they're asked to divulge. If, however, you WOULD like to know how your hospital compares to other hospitals, I think you should have a right to know. I would want to know, so why shouldn't I have access to that sort of information?
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....many people arent thinking outside the box....
. The staff said that this was the first time a baby had actually done what she had done.
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