As an older first time mom and being a breech baby myself I’d pretty much come into the pregnancy with the attitude that ‘Hey, I’ll try the natural childbirth thing but my main goal is a healthy baby.’ So I was pretty much ok with either outcome. The thing I had really wanted to avoid was the epidural needle and I ended up with a spinal anyway!

Congratulations on your baby girl!

I wonder if OB practice patterns are different in private vs academic? All the academic OBs I’ve worked with would not deliver at 38 wks, as that is not technically full term. In fact none of them would induce a normal healthy pregnancy before the mom was post-dates (42 wks). And no OB would schedule a C/S “just for convenience” if a mom didn’t have to undergo a C/S or wanted to try a VBAC. Scheduling C/S is a different story if it’s a second or later pregnancy and the first delivery was a C/S. If the mom HAS to have a C/S (which, if you’ve already had 2 or more C/S, you’ll continue to have C/S, as no OB would allow an attempted VBAC, as risk of uterine rupture is too high). If you have to have a C/S anyway because of medical history, I don’t see why not schedule for convenience, during week 39 or later.

There _is_ a flurry of C/S scheduled the last week of December–expectant moms trying to get the baby out before the next calendar year–but those are all women who have to have C/S for medical reasons anyway.

Bellamomma and class-factotum, can you imagine the guilt a mom would carry if she chose a home-birth and things went wrong and her child was injured for life? I can’t imagine taking that risk.

The best model I’ve seen for allowing women a full range of choices and safety for childbirth was in one of the Boston hospitals, where the OBs partnered with area midwives. Women with normal healthy pregnancies could have a midwife-attended, natural childbirth in a private hospital suite (I think with the bathtubs and everything). If anything went wrong, medical attention was immediately available. It was a great model, though difficult to duplicate because OBs and midwives don’t always get along!

I think the “against her husband’s wishes” is also a key part of this woman’s psychology, along with her refusal to call 911 when HER BABY’S LIFE WAS AT RISK.

I’m with you. My motto is no pain, no pain.

I think that there are too many doctors who are willing to do things like induce at 38 weeks because the mom doesn’t want to be pregnant any more (which is likely to fail and lead to c-section) or do a c-section just for convenience sake.

She kept telling the husbands “women look forward to childbirth. We’ve planned and looked forward to the experience since we were little girls. I gave birth to both my children at home, against my husband’s wishes, and it was everything I hoped for!”

I just kept thinking, “I planned and looked forward to my wedding since I was a girl. The only plan I had for childbirth was to avoid the pain as much as possible!”

She also admitted that she almost lost her first baby because they were not in a hospital, and her husband wanted to call 911, but she held her ground and it all ended up okay. I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand why anyone would WANT that kind of experience.

Did she mention the part of how women have been dying in childbirth since the beginning of time, too? Or, at the least, been in a lot of pain? Maybe she really believes that labor pains are our punishment for Eve’s transgressions.

I can remember hearing of another learned study back then, 30+ years ago, saying too many c-sections were being performed unnecessarily, and that researchers had found a potential link to kidney disease later in life for children born via c-section.

BTW, I did end up in the delivery room when my grandchildwas born, and child birth definitely improves as a spectator sport. And once you get beyond the “I can’t believe what I’m looking at” phase and get to the “oh my God, that’s the most perfect child I’ve ever seen” phase, it’s a highly moving experience.

The teacher took a poll at the end of the last session, asking who would be brave enough to push through natural childbirth and who would wuss out and have medication. Everyone in the room, but me, agreed (very nervously) to get through their labors unassisted. I raised my hand fearlessly and said “epidural all the way!”

Well, I ended up having to be induced and I got my epidural, but I ended up letting the epidural stop because the nurses said it would slow down the pushing. Well, ladies, I pushed through two hours of medicine free labor. By the end of it I knew why some women have planned c-sections. I was so bitter about the experience, I wouldn’t look at my baby for days. I feel differently now and I don’t think I would do a planned c-section. I would just keep the epidural going!

However, honestly, it’s your own body and if you would rather be cut open then tear open, don’t let anyone try to tell you you’re wrong! It’s your body, your baby, and it should be between you and your doctor. The only thing I feel really strongly about here is that I DON’T like people, like my child-prep teacher, pushing their agenda on first-time moms.

If I ever had a baby, I would ask to be knocked out because I’ve had menstrual cramps that have made me pass out, so why would I want to have even worse pain in labor?

And amen to the statement that women used to die in labor. The corollary to that is that children used to die from diptheria and whooping cough (my great-something grandmother lost all six of her children in seven days to diptheria, then had more kids), which is why we vaccinate now. The same women who want to have their babies at home in the bathtub because “it’s so safe! what could go wrong?” are probably the same ones who think vaccinating is a bad idea.

Sorry. I got off track there. I just get so annoyed with people who ignore the role of modern medicine in maternal and child health and want to be “natural,” when it’s nature, and not medicine, that has tried to kill them.

Unfortunately, at a population level, I think also that there are too many C/S due to fear of malpractice lawsuits.

One of the most interesting ethical/technological/medical discussions I’ve heard was a lecture about how those little scalp baby heart monitors altered OB/Gyn practice in the 1980s. Although advertised as enabling OBs to monitor the health of the baby during vaginal delivery, there was very little evidence at the time backing up the appropriate interpretation of the baby’s heart rate. There was also a widespread belief–though never proved, and is highly debatable–that cerebral palsy was due to birth trauma during vaginal delivery. Sometimes it might be, but often no one really knows. ALL to say, there was a flurry of high-priced lawsuits against OBs when moms went through difficult vaginal deliveries, the OB was accused of improperly interpreting the baby scalp heart monitor (though remember, there were NO “gold-standard” studies established guidelines for such interpretations) and the baby came out with cerebral palsy. Result: OBs are quick to stop a vaginal delivery and convert to C/S, because they a) don’t want to risk hurting the mom or baby and b) they don’t want to get sued if the baby comes out with a problem.

An interesting history of the judicial and medical issues surrounding those heart monitors can be found in this article:

http://www.warriorsfortruth.com/john-edwards-vice-president.html

(I do NOT include this in any way, shape or form as a comment on John Edwards or politics or elections or anything. It’s just his history in the legal profession and the cases he won for his clients are highly publicized and good examples of the 1980s lawsuits that have now led to increased C/S rates.)

On a more personal note, I think the whole C/S vs vaginal delivery thing is sort of like the whole formula vs. breast-feeding thing. If you’re blessed enough that everything goes well, do it naturally. But if things aren’t working, there’s no shame in taking advantage of medical and social progress TO SURVIVE. Check out the graphs here:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4838a2.htm#fig1

I’m so glad we live in a time when we expect–no, demand– that all moms and babies live through childbirth. It’s such a gift, even it it comes with C/S.