When we complain about the amount of intervention in Australain hospitals it seems to me that we often lay the blame on the hospital and by doing this we insult women such as this patient.
I've often wondered the same thing, Chloe (and I only just found out that's your real name... quick on the uptake, hey?? LOL). The amount of women that I have spoken to that elected to have a caesar despite the risks is amazing (mind, I am talking about elective c/s out of choice - not for medical reasons). I even have one woman in my MG that wouldn't even entertain the idea of a natural birth!

I opted for an epidural because I was told by several friends that didn't have one to have one. I had a couple of friends who had asked for one but it was too late so they had put the fear of God into me that the same thing would happen to me. Right or wrong, that was how I felt going in. I just found that there was so much information being thrown at me (which was often contradictive) that I really had no idea what was involved with induction, epidurals and other interventions (even though I have been chatting on BB for quite some time). I often wonder what women armed with even less information would do?? We are kind of taught, rightly or wrongly, that doctors know best.
While I feel a little ripped off by my birth experience (induced early for high BP, epidural and emergency caesarian), I really didn't kick up much of a fuss. I was so scared that my baby would be still-born that I was happy to just go along with whatever. I think sometimes fear plays a major role in the amount of intervention that takes place.

I don't know. I think if you looked at births on a case by case basis, you would find that for every doctor that forced medical intervention on a patient unnessarily, there's a woman demanding it??
I agree with you, Kate. You can't tarnish all hospitals and all OB's with the same brush. Hek, in public hospitals it can be the luck of the draw if you get a doctor that is pro-natural birth as opposed to one that is induction happy.