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Doctors warn of alarming C-section 'epidemic'

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

#151

Post by paulddraper »

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.

* It's the doctor's concern because of the Hippocratic Oath

* It's the baby's and therefore father's concern (but not choice), since vaginal birth is correlated with better outcomes.

* If insured, it's the insurer's concern, as it's over twice the cost of vaginal delivery. (In the case of the UK, this is the government, so literally everyone.)

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

#152

Post by Herodotus38 »

gcb0 wrote: post #86
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…

contributing to your social critic on everyone having an opinion; why not see the first c-section as the root of the problem?

They may not have had the option to avoid the first c-section, depending on the circumstances of the first pregnancy.

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

#153

Post by lostlogin »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #118
Angostura wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How a baby is delivered is none of anyone's business but the mother herself. I'm sorry for your loss. Caesarian's costs the NHS around £1,700 a time compared with £750, for a normal childbirth and women also stay in hospital for twice as long on average. There is a general presumption in the UK that avoiding what is an invasive operation is preferable for both baby and mother alike, in the absence of other factors.…

£950 for something that occurs once per lifetime seems extremely negligible.

And probably can be divided by 2 or 3 (twins, triplets) more frequently than non-caesarean births can.

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

#154

Post by acd »

Babies ingest vital microbes during natural birth helping kick start their immune system when exciting from the mothers vagina. It also helps to get the babys breathing started. The microbes that babies get in contact with during natural birth help form their gut microbes. Gut microbes are essential to human health. If we eat food from animals that have been given antibiotics or we take antibiotics, we mess with the gut microbe system that prevents us from getting sick.

To clean environment is not good for humans. Ie with a little dirt our immune system is better. That is why for example people growing up on the country side has less allergy.

https://www.wired.com/2014/04/missing-microbes-antibiotic-re...

The Normal Gut Microbiota: An Essential Factor in Health. Article https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3983973/

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

#155

Post by lostlogin »

jessaustin wrote: post #132
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…

Very sorry for your loss. After her first C-section, a relative of mine was told by her physicians that all subsequent births should be the same because that was safer. It's interesting how the standard of care varies between nations.

Standard of care may not be relevant. Stats are great for making policies to improve population health and wellbeing, but when you are the one in a million to whom a rare and catastrophic event occurs despite best practice, where does that leave one?

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

#156

Post by lostlogin »

b_tterc_p wrote: post #77
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…

I feel doctors should be allowed to refuse alternate procedures that heighten risk for the patient.

That is an incredibly slippery slope. Apply it to other healthcare scenarios, particularly pregnancy, and it’s got a poor track record. Take this thalidomide, keep this pregnancy etc etc.

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

#157

Post by lostlogin »

e40 wrote: post #68
epmaybe wrote: post #67

Interesting article. I also thought that encouraging cesarean sections was something obstetricians did often to avoid the time spent waiting for delivery. However, in my training I witnessed quite the opposite. My resident and attending physicians were very cautious with going forward with cesarean sections, and would do whatever they could to continue with vaginal delivery when the mother wanted that, and also encou…

With the birth of my son, we switched obgyn's because she basically told us it was pretty certain we'd have a c section, because she didn't have time to wait. We switched doctors and it was the first question we asked when interviewing prospective doctors. This was in 2000.

I had no idea that interviewing doctors for delivering your child was a thing. Do they charge for it? Is it common?

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

#158

Post by lostlogin »

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…

Where has ‘at least’ a 75% C-section rate (5x 15%)? That is alarming.

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

#159

Post by JoshMnem »

civility wrote: post #115
JoshMnem wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more likely that it's a bad thing. Babies are supposed to get seeded with microbes, which probably affects the immune system. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3110651/

There's probably some truth to this, but it doesn't take much imagination to imagine how the babies could be "seeded" after a C-section birth.

There probably isn't enough research to come to conclusions yet, but see also this:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180530113126.h...

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

#160

Post by jessaustin »

lostlogin wrote: post #155
jessaustin wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very sorry for your loss. After her first C-section, a relative of mine was told by her physicians that all subsequent births should be the same because that was safer. It's interesting how the standard of care varies between nations.

Standard of care may not be relevant. Stats are great for making policies to improve population health and wellbeing, but when you are the one in a million to whom a rare and catastrophic event occurs despite best practice, where does that leave one?

My understanding is that GP poster's wife was in the same position as my relative, being pregnant and having previously had a C-section. That they got different advice, is precisely a difference in the standard of care. Problems with birth are certainly not one in a million.
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