Originally Posted by Robin Frolic

It should be, yes. Unfortunately, 25-30% of babies in North America are now delivered via c-section. Many of those cesareans occur as a direct result of complications caused by routine hospital interventions. You go into a hospital to have a baby, you have a 1 in 4 chance of having major abdominal surgery.

For the record, the World Health Organization says the cesarean rate should NEVER be above 10-15%. And a good midwife often has a cesarean-transfer rate of 5%. So it shows pretty clearly that most cesareans are complete bullshit, and/or are caused by standard hospital practice.

This used to upset me, but I don't really care that much anymore. I think, "You bought it, you own it." If you choose to have a surgeon (obstetricians are surgeons) for your caregiver, and you choose to give birth in a place where you know the chance is 1 in 4 you will get cut, then that's your own choice.



Yes, both for that pregnancy and for future pregnancies. Cesarean birth is four times more dangerous than vaginal birth, and chances of uterine rupture (literally, the uterus splitting open, which is a life-threatening condition) is doubled for future pregnancies. Risk of placenta previa (placenta covering the cervix, requiring repeat cesarean) is four times as high in future pregnancies, secondary infertility can be a serious problem, and placental abruption (where the placenta detaches from the uterus, which is also life-threatening for the baby and also can be for the mother due to hemorrhage) is almost doubled in risk for future pregnancies. Rates of babies getting accidentally cut with the scalpel during cesarean deliveries can be as high as 15%, and I'm not even going to address the significantly increased risk of breathing difficulties for the newborn post-birth. And this isn't addressing the risks of epidural anesthesia (always used for cesarean births unless it's an emergency, in which case general anesthetic is sometimes used, and that's even riskier) or the narcotics post-birth. And don't forget significantly longer recovery time after the birth, long-term nerve and muscle damage, uterine scarring, increased rates of difficulty establishing breastfeeding, difficulty caring for the newborn due to pain, etc.

That's just a very short list of why cesareans are a terrible idea except in emergencies, and why it's a terrible idea to have so many hospital procedures that increase the risk of causing an emergency. (Going into more detail about hospital procedures causing emergencies would be a long post all by itself, but if anyone's interested, I'm more than happy to do so.)