[ozmidwifery] Cs story

[Jo & Dean Bainbridge]

I am a mum whose first birth was by caesarean, the next birth with medical interventions (forceps etc), and then a natural vaginal birth.  Pretty much done it all!  It really concerns me when people like Tracy Curio can make statements like a vaginal birth is not a life changing essential rite of passage into mother or woman hood....when she has never done it!  Women who make comments about experiences they have not lived should never make blanket comments.  To say something like that is not only arrogant but ignorant.      Nothing compares to birthing a baby naturally, with no complications, with no fear and surrounded by those people who truly care for you and your baby.  There is nothing like it, there is no way to describe it.  Complicated vaginal birth is something that I have experienced twice, it is for that reason that I feel that I can accurately compare the experiences.  For me to finally birth a baby naturally and without fear or complications was a major accomplishment and healed many sorrows.  I feel that it is understandable for Vanessa to chose her caesarean birth, but is her experience reflective of the general population?  Many women do have traumatic vaginal birth experiences, but should we not be asking why? Why is it that some hospitals have induction rates of over 50% and coincidently have cs rates of 35% to 40%?  Is there not correlation in this?  Why is it that all birth centres around the country are booked out continuously?  Why the newly introduced midwifery group practice in Adelaide is having to double it's numbers next year from 500 women per year to 1000 due to the demand for midwifery led care.  What is happening in our labour wards under the medical model of care that makes major abdominal surgery a preferred option?   The story presented by 60 minutes was fraught with incorrect information: pelvic floor being 'saved' by cs...it is more likely pregnancy hormones, botched or poorly timed medical interventions like forceps and episiotomies, and the lack of pelvic floor exercising by women that causes stress incontinences etc;  and the story's total exclusion of the serious complications from cs that are sadly becoming 'less rare' as the more cs are done...life threatening events such as serious placental complications and even links with still birth in future pregnancies.   Such biased and incorrect information being shown to our birthing mothers is a sad reflection of our society loosing the sacredness and importance of birth.  On one aspect you are reporting caesareans as being as  normal as a vaginal birth (however you only acknowledged the complicated vaginal birth scenario) but not once did the reporter or those involved in the story refer to caesarean as a caesarean birth. C-Section, or caesarean section is the medical terminology. We don't call the baby the foetus in every day speech do we?   I watched the segment with interest, but sadly was left disappointed and thinking once again: "you just don't get it!"   Jo Bainbridge Nairne, South Australia