Some OBs think so:
Flamm says that notwithstanding the WHO recommendation — which followed the same official U.S. health recommendations in the Healthy People 2000 initiative — there isn’t enough data to say what the appropriate C-section rate should be.“Some of my colleagues think it should be higher,” Flamm says. “I have heard some doctors say that all women should have babies by C-section, that vaginal births are archaic. Some docs have a C-section rate of 50 percent because they believe in their hearts it’s the best thing for their patients.”
Related posts:
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- Over half of births in China are C-sections
- RIP VBAC?
- Home births in New York City
- Media coverage of multiple births
- Rising childbirth deaths and C-sections
- Natural births
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{ 4 comments }
Well written article. However, the only appropriate Cesarean section rate today is either 0% or 100%. Each patient is an individual case. I ceased tracking my C-section rate years ago. It doesn’t matter to me if my C-section rate is 5% or 50% as long as the individual patient was managed appropriately. In the 21st century a Cesarean is a normal delivery, and so is a vaginal delivery.
And once we’ve banished the vaginal delivery to the history books, then we can consider eliminating vaginal insemination.
This post made me remember a passage in a book I’m reading on the fall of Rome (sorry no cite; it’s at home and I don’t remember the author and title.)
In the late 4th/early 5th century there was a precipitous decline in quality of life and availability of goods in the Roman empire. One important factor contributing to this decline was that occupations had become very specialized. When commerce was disrupted, goods that had been available at the markets were suddenly gone. If no one locally knew how to weave or make shoes or plows, you were out of luck. These skills had to be painfully relearned.
I know women aren’t going to forget how to give birth, but I think it’s foolish to make childbirth dependant on technology. Imagine a post-major-earthquake SF or LA in the year 2075. Will there be docs and nurses who know how to handle a difficult vaginal birth? I guess stuff like this happens all the time. Would all ER docs today would recognize small pox or polio?
Anyway, just food for thought. I’m a fiction writer, so it’s kind of my nature to take any idea and twist it into a weird scenario.
Normal Vaginal Delivery is a retrospective diagnosis
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