Stop attacks on c-section mums
Every woman has the right to choose what happens to her at the hands of the medical profession
16
Dec
2011
I’ve spent a big part of my life writing to stop women feeling guilty about themselves, especially when it comes to pregnancy and birth. One of my beliefs is that every woman has the right to choose what happens to her at the hands of the medical profession.
I would fiercely defend a woman’s choices, whatever they are, when she finds herself in the sometimes frightening position of giving birth. The recent furore about a woman’s right, under certain circumstances, to choose to have her baby by caesarean section is a case in point.Kirstie Allsopp, bless her, recently stirred things up when she tweeted to ask if any woman got information on C-sections during their National Childbirth Trust (NCT) classes. During her long labour with her second son Oscar, Kirstie found herself unable to deliver. He just wouldn’t budge, so she opted to have a C-section. She was totally unprepared for it and, along with many other women who answered her tweet, had not learned about caesareans in NCT classes.
The NCT says 97% of parents remember caesarean sections being covered in its courses. Its stance is its classes are led by the women who attend, and as most women want a natural birth they don’t always ask about medical intervention.
Frankly, this flies in the face of everyone’s experience. One in four women in this country end up having a C-section. And even though I’m against unnecessary caesareans, every mum-to-be has the right to information on C-sections.
Whatever Kirstie’s experience, this has prompted an important debate about the subject. C-sections save the lives of mothers and babies. It’s not good enough to say that women in the Third World give birth naturally without any help. They do, but maternal and infant mortality rates are more than a hundred times what they are here.
It’s also quite wrong to make a woman feel guilty because a C-section was a necessity. She hasn’t let anyone down. The moment she holds her newborn, however it was delivered, is a triumph for any woman and everyone should see it as such.
Source: Daily Mirror
