Citiraj:
Information on Technologies Used During Birth
Because a situation may arise during birth where time constraints limit the opportunity to get full information on a technology or procedure being proposed for use on you, it is wise to look long before your due date at the information on certain technologies used frequently during birth. Brief mention already has been made of episiotomy, the surgical cutting of women's genitals.
Since in American hospitals 20 percent or more of woman do not give birth but instead the baby is cut out with cesarean section, you need information on this technology in advance of your birthing. There is no better example of the surgical approach to birth than cesarean section, because it is the ultimate solution of all surgeons—cut it out. Some obstetricians are so enamored of this technical solution to birth that they are now promoting it as preferable to the normal way of giving birth through the vagina.
One recent article in a prominent medical journal seriously proposed the routine surgical removal, by cesarean section, of all babies, together with a policy that would require a signed release from any woman so foolish as to insist on vaginal birth. Another paper published in an authoritative medical journal tried to show, using very biased data, that efforts to reduce cesarean section in the United States below 20 percent would be dangerous, a proposal that goes against a massive amount of good scientific data. A third article in a medical journal insisted women have the right to demand cesarean section birth even when there is no medical reason for it.
Meanwhile, a recent popular book for the public urges women in the United States to request a routine cesarean section birth because they "want to maintain the vaginal tone of a teenager and their doctors can find a medical explanation that will suit the insurance company." So a tight vagina for your sexual partner should be your first concern, and it's okay for your doctor to lie and cheat the insurance company. The surgical approach to birth has run amok!
What is the truth, scientifically, about cesarean section? Compare what you are told with the following scientifically documented information. Again, while getting information on this major surgical procedure, the first question is, "How safe is cesarean section?" Always beware of any attempts to pooh-pooh the question or downplay the risks. We are talking about major abdominal surgery that carries major risks. Starting with the risks to the woman, she has a four to eight times greater chance of dying from a cesarean section than she does giving birth through her vagina. Even a routine, scheduled cesarean section with no medical complication as the reason for the surgery carries a two times greater risk that the woman will die from the surgery.
Even if the woman does not die, she is at risk for many serious complications from the surgery, such as the accidental cutting of her bladder or other internal organs and a 20 percent chance she will get an infection as a result of the surgery. Since the woman often gets a fever with this infection, her fever necessitates a fever diagnostic work-up of her infant, with blood tests and even spinal tap of the baby.
Having a cesarean birth also affects the future reproductive possibilities of the woman, because having a cesarean section means she has a decreased chance of ever getting pregnant again. And if she does get pregnant again, she is at higher risk that her pregnancy will occur outside her womb, a condition that will never result in a live baby and is life threatening for the woman. If in her subsequent pregnancies she succeeds in making it to the end of pregnancy and goes into labor, she is also at higher risk of two serious complications during the birth, both of which can threaten her own life and the life of the baby: a placenta that blocks the outlet for the baby or a placenta that detaches itself before the baby is born.
While some women might be willing to take risks with their own body, it would be very hard to find a woman willing to take risks with the life or health of her baby just for her own convenience or to avoid labor pain. So the following risks to the baby born by cesarean section are of great importance. There is about a 5 percent chance that when the surgeon cuts into the woman's body during a cesarean section, the knife will accidentally also cut her baby. Because all the water is not squeezed out of the baby's lungs as is normally done during a vaginal birth, more babies born after cesarean section develop serious respiratory distress syndrome, one of the biggest killers of newborn babies. Because doctors are not as good as they would like to be in estimating, even with ultrasound, the baby's gestational age—i.e., whether the pregnancy has gone long enough—too often a cesarean section is done too soon, resulting in a premature birth. Prematurity is a big killer of newborn babies and also carries a higher risk of brain damage to the baby. It is difficult to imagine that a woman who has been given full information on these risks to herself and her baby would still choose a cesarean section when there is no serious medical reason for it. Obstetricians have jumped on the "woman's choice" bandwagon, which in many ways is a good thing except for the tendency to push women's choice only for things the obstetricians want to do anyway. For example, for years the scientific evidence has favored vaginal birth after an earlier cesarean section (called VBAC) rather than a repeat cesarean section. Doctors, however, have never really pushed VBAC, but instead emphasize a repeat cesarean. Pushing women to have the right to choose major surgery for which there is no medical indication is ridiculous as well as dangerous. It has been established legally and ethically that patients have the right to refuse treatment even when medically indicated, but patients have never had the right to choose medical or surgical treatment that is not indicated. Doctors are under no obligation to do unjustified major surgery. Women's "choice" is clearly limited to medically valid options.
