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Doctors warn of alarming C-section 'epidemic'

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Re: Doctors warn of alarming C-section 'epidemic'

#51

Post by legulere »

laythea wrote: post #43
cellis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually historically, we foraged and hunted. After reading Sapiens I’m convinced that farming actually set humans on the path towards this very suffering. Large scale war, famine and pretty much every post agrarian revolution ill, is a direct consequence of having food surpluses.

I haven't had my first coffee in the morning yet, so it may be me, but I'm struggling to see the link between food surplus & farming and war?

Farming first leads to food surplus, but also to a food supply that occasionally collapses without alternatives. It also leads to large hierarchical society structures and problems around ownership of land/resources, which basically is what war is about.

Re: Doctors warn of alarming C-section 'epidemic'

#52

Post by iforgotpassword »

jayalpha wrote: post #50
harry8 wrote: post #8

Ok so no mention of the health implications of so called "natural" childbirth, which aren't trivial and have an increasing risk as your age. No mention of the rising age of mothers in wealthy countries. No mention of different trade offs for fit 19 year olds and less active 35 year olds. A lot of 30+ women decide they don't want to piss their pants and have painful intercourse for the rest of their lives. Word gets a…

Sorry for being naive but: "A lot of 30+ women decide they don't want to piss their pants and have painful intercourse for the rest of their lives. " Is this a real risk of vaginal child birth? And how risky is it?

Yes, vaginal birth increases the risk compared to c-sec. However unlike what GPs wording suggests you don't go full throttle like a toddler learning to sleep without a diaper, it's more like a few droplets. If you had it during pregnancy already, chances are higher it'll continue after birth. In most cases it stops after a few weeks, but it can be permanent, so it will happen every now and then, when you're sneezing hard etc. You can get it under control with exercising.

You can look up further information from your country's health institutions, usually including numbers on how prevalent it is where you're from. Being older when giving birth, being obese and some other factors do increase the risk.

Re: Doctors warn of alarming C-section 'epidemic'

#53

Post by grecy »

harry8 wrote: post #13
grecy wrote: post #7

My sister-in-law just had her first baby, and got very into all of these statistics and the "medical industrial complex take on childbirth" I believe the WHO recommends around 10-15% of births should be C-Section in a healthy population, but the figures in first world countries are at least 3-5 times that. There are about 3 million stories of ladies "booking in" their birth a month or three in advance. I.e. I want my…

"natural" like half of women dead in childbirth natural?

Such a great myth that our culture perpetuates.

You genuinely think half of women are dying in Childbirth in undeveloped countries right now?

I'm in Africa typing this, and I can honestly say you have no idea.

FWIW, my sister-in-law had her baby at home, zero medical anything, just a widwife keeping an eye on things.

Re: Doctors warn of alarming C-section 'epidemic'

#54

Post by dang »

harry8 wrote: post #13
grecy wrote: post #7

My sister-in-law just had her first baby, and got very into all of these statistics and the "medical industrial complex take on childbirth" I believe the WHO recommends around 10-15% of births should be C-Section in a healthy population, but the figures in first world countries are at least 3-5 times that. There are about 3 million stories of ladies "booking in" their birth a month or three in advance. I.e. I want my…

"natural" like half of women dead in childbirth natural?

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." Doing otherwise leads to tedious flamewars.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Doctors warn of alarming C-section 'epidemic'

#55

Post by DanBC »

grecy wrote: post #7

My sister-in-law just had her first baby, and got very into all of these statistics and the "medical industrial complex take on childbirth" I believe the WHO recommends around 10-15% of births should be C-Section in a healthy population, but the figures in first world countries are at least 3-5 times that. There are about 3 million stories of ladies "booking in" their birth a month or three in advance. I.e. I want my…

> It's horrifying that hospitals will market a "natural birth" as anything that is vaginal. i.e. it doesn't matter how many drugs they give you, it doesn't matter what drugs they give you to speed up the afterbirth, etc. etc. It's still "natural

That's definitely not the definition used in the UK. Normal birth in the UK doesn't include epidural but does include some other pain relief. This is controversial because epidural is probably safer.

Re: Doctors warn of alarming C-section 'epidemic'

#56

Post by DanBC »

danw1979 wrote: post #30

Women feel enormous pressure (at least here in the UK) to give birth naturally, from both their peers and health professionals. How a baby is delivered is none of anyone's business but the mother herself. My wife (an epidemiologist) deliberated for months over having our second by VBAC (vaginal birth after csection) and opted to go for it, due to the overwhelming expectation from everyone around her that she should d…

James Titcombe and others are campaigning pretty hard on this. Women need to be given correct information, but their wishes also need to be respected.

These campaigners have persuaded the CQC to stop pressuring trusts over rates of C-section or normal birth, and to get the NMC to stop paying normal birth so hard.

Re: Doctors warn of alarming C-section 'epidemic'

#57

Post by jrs95 »

cellis wrote: post #6
DoreenMichele wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think it is probably more insidious than that. We have a lot fewer full-time homemakers. Women are much more likely to have paid jobs. The only way to schedule the birth is by scheduling a C-section. Waiting for the baby to show up when it decides to do so is a very organic, let nature take its course, humble thing to do and it is pretty alien to how most people live these days in developed countries. Hist…

Actually historically, we foraged and hunted. After reading Sapiens I’m convinced that farming actually set humans on the path towards this very suffering. Large scale war, famine and pretty much every post agrarian revolution ill, is a direct consequence of having food surpluses.

Without agriculture we'd still be hunter gatherers with little to no technology and everyone would be struggling just to survive. Sure, there are unpleasant side effects that come along with technological development but quality of life is still vastly better as a result.

Re: Doctors warn of alarming C-section 'epidemic'

#58

Post by jkestner »

cellis wrote: post #6
DoreenMichele wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think it is probably more insidious than that. We have a lot fewer full-time homemakers. Women are much more likely to have paid jobs. The only way to schedule the birth is by scheduling a C-section. Waiting for the baby to show up when it decides to do so is a very organic, let nature take its course, humble thing to do and it is pretty alien to how most people live these days in developed countries. Hist…

Actually historically, we foraged and hunted. After reading Sapiens I’m convinced that farming actually set humans on the path towards this very suffering. Large scale war, famine and pretty much every post agrarian revolution ill, is a direct consequence of having food surpluses.

This was also the theme of Ishmael, a terrible book wrapped around an interesting idea—that the native Americans practiced the right balance with the rest of nature.

Re: Doctors warn of alarming C-section 'epidemic'

#59

Post by SigmundA »

This really seems like one obvious way in which we are effecting our own evolution and would not be surprised if in a short time (on an evolutionary scale) that humans will require c-sections for successful birth.

This may not be a bad thing, the reason child birth is so difficult for humans vs most other animals is our head size vs the female pelvis. C-sections bypass the evolutionary constraint allowing more large headed babies to smaller pelvis women which could allow greater head size and perhaps even more intelligence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstetrical_dilemma

Re: Doctors warn of alarming C-section 'epidemic'

#60

Post by qrbLPHiKpiux »

danw1979 wrote: post #30

Women feel enormous pressure (at least here in the UK) to give birth naturally, from both their peers and health professionals. How a baby is delivered is none of anyone's business but the mother herself. My wife (an epidemiologist) deliberated for months over having our second by VBAC (vaginal birth after csection) and opted to go for it, due to the overwhelming expectation from everyone around her that she should d…

> How a baby is delivered is none of anyone's business but the mother herself.

Try telling that to some of those here, in the US. The mantra is "do what I say, not what I do."

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