Snacks - thank you for your comments. When I say that the only thing that matters is that the final outcome is a happy and healthy mother and baby I am in no way meaning to be insensitive to mothers who have been traumatised or upset by the type of labour they had. I in no way had a pleasant experience. I was in agony, I watched my daughters heart rate drop with every contraction because of the cord, I was exhausted and I had an epi. For a long time after my birth I was upset by it but I guess for me, and for many of my female friends who also didnt find their birth experience enjoyable, the best way we can accept it and go on to have other babies is to say well it wasnt enjoyable and it wasnt what we wanted/planned but at the end of the day, we and our babies are ok. One of my girlfriends even set up a support group in Qld because she was so traumatised by her birth experience and yet she even says that at the end of the day, to her, the main thing is that her and her baby were ok. I guess it is a way of accepting our birth experience and moving forward. And thats ok, because that is how we choose to deal with it and its not being insensitive to others, its being sensitive to how we feel. Its like anything, other people can choose to look at it that way, and they can choose not too.

Kelly - my experience differs to the one you suggest with private hospitals. My Obstetrician was in an out of my delivery probably every half an hour to check up on me and yes, he walked me through my labour - he wasnt there just to catch the baby. Furthermore, my midwife was with me from 6am in the morning (the minute we walked in) to the minute I left the room for the ward at 8pm at night. She didnt have any other patients to care for. Just me and my husband. And she is going to be my midwife this time around again.

And yes you are right, we have the highest c/s rate in the industrialised world. And no its not right. I work in a private hospital and we are doing everything that we can to reduce the c/s rate to get it to a level that is acceptable. However, although we develop and print brochures to inform our patients, work closely with our Obstetricians, make doulas known and available to our patients, provide education sessions to women and their partners, a lot of them (for reasons which we know but which I will not go into in this forum) CHOOSE to have an elective c/s. Even in our c/s education sessions we encourage women to consider vaginal delivery as an option. From a quality and risk perspective for our hospital, high c/s rates are an ongoing issue which we are continually working with our Obstetricians to reduce. Yes, there are some 'old school' Obs that dont want to know about vaginal delivery's - I admit that, but as well there are quite a few Obstetricians that are keen to reduce the c/s rate (at least at our hospital) and encourage the 'natural' approach to birthing.