I've been reading this thread but have not responded because as someone who's never had a c/s, I didn't think I had much to say.

However I will state that there was much pressure on me to have a c/s with my youngest son as he was in distress. Luckily because I knew a little about how births in hospital can be medicalised quite quickly, I asked for him to be monitored and was augmented instead, and I did manage a vaginal birth in the end. However, my husband was just about ready to divorce me because he was being led to believe that I was putting my baby's life at risk by asking to try to continue labour as opposed to agreeing immediately to a c/s. But that's a whole other story.

I am more interested in the comment about not having a choice, and the guilt associated with it. I had IVF to conceive my youngest son. I didn't have a choice as I simply cannot conceive naturally. Of the myriad of feelings I had about IVF, guilt about having to go down that route wasn't one of them. Why feel guilty about something you have no choice over?

So if you HAD to have a c/s, because there was no other choice, then guilt shouldn't be a factor. It's like saying I feel guilty that I'm Asian, or a woman, or alive even. No choice should equal no guilt.

That's why I don't get threads like this. If you had a c/s because you HAD to have one, how can anyone advocating vaginal birth make you feel bad? I know that nataural conception is preferable, has lower genetic defect rates, is cheaper, is how nature intended, but if I can't do it that way, why would any of that bother me?

And if I chose a c/s then why do I need to defend my decision to anyone? Because if you can be made to feel bad about your choice, then it obviously wasn't a very good, well-considered or defendable choice, was it?

So get over it, people. BB is trying to get a msg out there, a msg that it believes is for the benefit of womenkind in general. It's not about having a go at individuals about their personal choice (or lack thereof). Once you understand that, then we can all co-exist without all this unnecessary angst.