Doctors should be telling women the truth, that C-sections put the mother at 4 times the risk of death as compared to a vaginal birth, and allowing women to choose which set of risks they want to take. It's not just about the baby when you're deciding VBAC or repeat C-section. A woman who is having to make this decision has at least one other child at home who faces the possibility not just of losing a sibling, but of losing a mother as well. For the doctor, it's simple--a 20 minute procedure, in and out, as opposed to attending a potentially long labor, and once it's over, he or she doesn't have to think about it any more. For the woman, she has to recover from major surgery while caring for a newborn and additional children. She has another scar on her uterus that increases the chance of placenta accreta and other problems in subsequent pregnancies. She faces an increased chance of death or major complications, including pelvic pain that can last for months, and for many, that pain never goes away. These are things that doctors rarely mention to women, they merely cite the risk of rupture (1 in 200, which is equal to the risk of miscarriage caused by amniocentesis, and yet the doctors don't "ban" those or have "policies" against them) and recommend a C-section instead. They never mention they are concerned about the risk of a lawsuit and that this is their primary motivation for recommending a C-section. Juries rarely find against a doctor who performed a C-section, they usually will find against the doctor who didn't perform a C-section.
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Posted on June 26 at 3:33 a.m.
Doctors should be telling women the truth, that C-sections put the mother at 4 times the risk of death as compared to a vaginal birth, and allowing women to choose which set of risks they want to take. It's not just about the baby when you're deciding VBAC or repeat C-section. A woman who is having to make this decision has at least one other child at home who faces the possibility not just of losing a sibling, but of losing a mother as well. For the doctor, it's simple--a 20 minute procedure, in and out, as opposed to attending a potentially long labor, and once it's over, he or she doesn't have to think about it any more. For the woman, she has to recover from major surgery while caring for a newborn and additional children. She has another scar on her uterus that increases the chance of placenta accreta and other problems in subsequent pregnancies. She faces an increased chance of death or major complications, including pelvic pain that can last for months, and for many, that pain never goes away. These are things that doctors rarely mention to women, they merely cite the risk of rupture (1 in 200, which is equal to the risk of miscarriage caused by amniocentesis, and yet the doctors don't "ban" those or have "policies" against them) and recommend a C-section instead. They never mention they are concerned about the risk of a lawsuit and that this is their primary motivation for recommending a C-section. Juries rarely find against a doctor who performed a C-section, they usually will find against the doctor who didn't perform a C-section.
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