Should c/s rates be published? Naming & shaming...

[maz]

Now what Id like to know...if its 'extra work' and 'extra expenses' ...how can it be???

Dont these guys use computers and have 'codes' that tick boxes. Are all our files in hospitals on computer. I know when I booked in for my c/s that it was all done on the computer and the admin asked if it was elective or medical elective c/s. what's the big friggen deal if they have to hit one more friggen key on the keyboard.

I have no doubt in my mind that the boards of hospitals have enough statistics about their c/s rate's compared to vaginal births to take to their monthly meetings. How else would they be able to work out their expenses and medicare repayments?????

I think a birth plan is a good idea...is a friggen start in the right direction of being in control of birthing the way you want...and its a hell alot better then going in all doey eyed. I had no birth plan with my first 2 and fell flat on my arse...yet thanks to BB and the advice I recieved here..I had one and it made my 3rd emergency c/s a hell of alot better. So lets not condem and make it sound so negetive when infact its actually positive!

[Ellibam]

hoobley its a game of chinese whispers!!!
quite a few of us get it but a few that just pop in cos it seems to be the "in thing" arent reading any of this right.
my mum is a m/w of 30+ yrs and she sits down every month and has to do the hospitals statistics.
my IM m/w has to put in her statistics to( and she goes in to te detail we want even though her tranfer rate is about 4% and c/s rate is 3 women in 7yrs doing four births a month)
so why cant private hospitals here in adelaide give out there stats??
(the public ones it is available to anyone who looks)

[Pretty Butterfly]

What happens to a woman who is sent back to a regional community after a traumatic birth (having had to travel hundreds of km's to birth), where there is NO maternal health care reasonably available to that woman (and there are many women in this situation).

Would it not be better for that woman to birth via c/s if she wants? And wouldn't there be a higher incidence of this type of c/s in those areas?

?

I dont see how sending her back after a "traumatic" birth is worse than sending her home after a C/section, if she has no care afterwards????

And I cant see how if you had to travel 100kms away, a c/section would be better if there is no medical need? A vaginal birth where your up immediatly and can leave asap, or major surgery? I would of thought it a no-brainer....

[Ellibam]

my mum works in a country hospital that has women comeing from upto 300kms away to birth because no other option is available and there c/s rate is about 23% for first time mums. (yes it is split between first time or having previous pgs)so much lower then the private hospitals that are mentioned having such high %s

[maz]

my mum works in a country hospital that has women comeing from upto 300kms away to birth because no other option is available and there c/s rate is about 23% for first time mums. (yes it is split between first time or having previous pgs)so much lower then the private hospitals that are mentioned having such high %s

Im going to have to ring my hospital as ask to see if they give me their c/s rate.

Ive heard midwives and OB's at the hospital say

dont give birth on tuesday or thursday...its c/s day

so if their saying this then surely there has to be some data SOMEWERE in their system to back it.

We have freedom of privacy and freedom of speech......so why not freedom of information of statistics that again HAVE NO NAMES ATTATCHED TO THEM

Have any of you EVER seen your doctor records let alone your hospital records?? Doctors tend to NOT give your your medical records but prefer to pass them on to the new doctor themselves....have you every wondered WHY? Its information about you


Hospitals and doctors need to be made accountable for their auctions...god we trust these people with our lives so why the hell cant we demand some statistics before we go giving them a ok to cut us open full stop!

[canberramomma]

I dont see how sending her back after a "traumatic" birth is worse than sending her home after a C/section, if she has no care afterwards????

And I cant see how if you had to travel 100kms away, a c/section would be better if there is no medical need? A vaginal birth where your up immediatly and can leave asap, or major surgery? I would of thought it a no-brainer....

Well, you have just illustrated m point exactly. It is of absolutely no benefit for women and children to publish these figures per region as every region, as with every birth, has many different variations!

[sushee]

I was thinking about this in the shower, and I think I've nailed down what's been bothering me.

It's the term 'choice'. I touched on it before but will speak more plainly.

What it sounds like to me is that those who are going on about 'choice' are actually talking about wanting to choose a c/s. They talk about their birth choice like it should be beyond criticism (even if the criticism isn't at all directed at them), and over and over again feel the need to defend themselves.

Yet what about those women who actually wish to choose a VB? Who wish to choose a hospital that will less likely to introduce interventions? Who wish to be informed of their birth choices? What about their right to choose? By saying you don't need it when a woman is saying she wants that information, you're effectively inhibiting HER birth choices.

If anyone here is truly advocating choice, why it is you then object to women having access to information that will assist them in making that very choice??

Because I see the opposite of what you're fearing happening with the introduction of measures to make hospitals accountable - women will have a true, informed choice, be it to have a c/s or to have a vb.

So you can't have it both ways. You can't talk about wanting choice, but then say other women shouldn't have access to information that will assist them in making their birth choice.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

I foresee one BIG problem.

The hospital "uses up" the amount of sections they are "allowed" by management for the month by day 2 (or maybe 1 - surgeons like chopping you up, admin like nice statistics).

A woman attends on day 3 and is going to die without a section. This rarely happens, the surgeons know, so they didn't leave a space for her.

What to do? The woman die so they can have more sections allowed by the top brass? Or be told off and fined because their section rate is now "too high"?

[sushee]

If an ob purposely ignores a woman in obvious need of a emergency c/s woman simply because he/she is worried about the hospital statistics, I reckon he/she deserves to be sued for malpractice. Because at that point, when a woman actually needs a c/s, is when he's supposed to be doing his job, and not performing unnecessary c/s on women who didn't actually want them, but was coerced into one.

To me, if this makes a Dr think twice about pressuring a woman to have a c/s when there is every possibility that she wouldn't need one at all, I think that's a hell of a positive outcome. If obs go back to peforming c/s on women who need them to save her or her baby, I think that's another positive outcome.

I loved birthing in a birth centre. If, by some miracle, I ever fell pg again, I'd be booking myself into one so fast your head would spin. But if I couldn't get into one, I would choose a hospital birth over a homebirth. I don't want to birth at home, I don't want to have my teenagers in the next room watching tv, or wanting to have their friends over (this actually happened while I was in labour).

So I would want to attend a hospital that had low intevention rates, because I would want a vb. So would it be helpful to me if I could then find out which hospitals had low intervention rate? I think so.