Turns out C-sections are not all they're cracked up to be. I mean, if you were expecting a fabulous rush of drugs, instant baby, and healing in a snap. That's probably not what you were expecting.But it turns out repeat C-sections are worse for babies than VBACs (vaginal birth after C-sections). If having an elective C-section after a previous one, the chance for your baby to wind up in the NICU is almost twice that if you'd done the second time vaginally.
The babies are more likely to have breathing problems and require supplemental oxygen.
The health costs aren't the only problem, says study author Dr. Beena Kamath:
In addition, the cost of the birth for both mother and infant was more expensive in the elective repeat c-section group compared to the vaginal birth after c-section (VBAC) group.
Remember how the nationwide C-section rate is rising? Almost a third of American babies are born through the belly. Half of those are elective. That in itself is frightening. (Hi, doc? Yeah, I'd like my baby born on the 19th. It's near my due date, and it was my grandma's birthday. It'd mean a lot. Or worse, working around the doc's schedule: I'll be out of town after the 19th. If you don't go into labor by then, let's just schedule a C-section. You're an older mother anyway.)
Women who have one C-section have a 90 percent chance of having another.
Every year for the past decade, the United States has set a new record of C-sections.
We should all be so proud.
To perform the study, researchers compared 343 women who had an elective C-section after a previous one versus 329 women who planned a VBAC (of those, 85 had to give brith by C-section a second time, for various reasons).
Babies born by the second C-section had a 9.3 percent chance of ending up in the NICU. Only 4.9 percent of the VBAC babies were admitted to the unit. Further, 42.5 percent of the C-section babies needed oxygen in the delivery room , while only 23.2 percent of the VBAC babies did.
Don't let those docs lecture you about the dangers of a VBAC without also mentioning the higher risk to the infant for repeated C-sections. And don't think for even a minute that this is some obscure scrapullette of info. It will be published in the June issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology. If your OB doesn't know of this study, she's not paying attention. Might want to look elsewhere for prenatal care.
Or you can go the tough broad route. The Feminist Breeder posted a most incredible "contract", borrowed from a somewhat anonymous source. I'll give you an excerpt, but you can go here to read it in full.
Share it with any to-be mamas you know. Any birthing classes. Any righteous women who need to see it. Pretty cool, and written by a former RN, who seems pretty fluent in legalese:
I, the undersigned physician, have, in violation of the Consumer Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, the Patient Self Determination Act, the ethical guidelines of the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Constitutional Law (the right to privacy and self determination protected by the 1st and 14th amendments), international tort law, and case law (of particular interest "In re A.C.", 1987, "In re Fetus Brown, 689 N.E.2d 397, 400 (Ill. App. Ct. 1997)", and "In re Baby Boy Doe, 632 N.E.2d 326 (Ill. App. Ct. 1994)") and the Patient Rights as determined by this institution, deprived my client,________________, of her right to self determination and her right to bodily integrity by ignoring her repeated refusal for delivery by repeat cesarean section. I acknowledge that by refusing to honor my client's denial of consent, I have not only violated the above laws...
Like I said: check it out in full and share, share, share.
Image: Kelly Sue on Flickr under a Creative Commons License.
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