The whole "naming and SHAMING" phrasing; I agree that it's counter-productive, but I think the reason why it's been titled such is because the statistics for C/S are so much higher than what the W.H.O recommends. That's where the "shame" lies - the fact that we can pretty safely assume that many if not most of the C/S being performed are unnecessary, which in turn puts both mother and baby at risk.
I'm going to come back to this as I read through the topic.
First of many edits;
A lot of people are saying "its no ones business/all that matters is safety". The reason why this information should be freely available IS safety; in normal pregnancies, vaginal birth is safer than C/S births. There are circumstances that require C/S and no one is saying that they shouldn't be performed in those instances, but the fact remains that unncessary C/S are being performed in Australia which compromises the safety of mothers and babies. No personal information would be made available so it's not an invasion of privacy by any stretch of the imagination.
edit:
I think people are taking this issue too personally. It's not a criticism of anyone who's had a c-section and no one is trying to say it is. Birth is a very personal, emotional experience so it makes sense that we would respond emotionally to it, but this isn't about emotion its about freedom of information.
A lot of people are saying that the statistics won't have a context. That's easily avoidable. As has already been said, there could (and should) be a complete statistical break down of what interventions were performed under what circumstances. Women aren't idiots, we can sift through the information given to us and make a judgement based on reason. The notion of not giving statistics in case some people misinterpret them seems pretty moot, lets give ourselves a bit more credit here!
Last edited by Trillian; November 22nd, 2008 at 07:32 AM.
: removing off topic comments
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