Mommy's using Morgan's blog to promote her own agenda here..........
Imagine my shock after being told (during labor) that I was a good candidate to have a 2nd child VBAC (vaginally) and then learning that the hospital will not allow doctors to perform VBACs because of insurance costs associated with the practice. This, despite the fact that a vaginal birth is, after a caesarean and in all cases, significantly less risky than major abdominal surgery. I will be forced to submit to surgery regardless of whether or not it is necessary. I am livid and heartbroken.
The VBAC issue is resurfacing now as the c-section rate in the USA tops over 30%. That means nearly 1 in 3 women will have a c-section. This is the highest in the developed world - we may then either assume that there is something very wrong with American women, or very wrong with our health care system. My strong suspicion is that there is something wrong with the system, not me.
Time Magazine and the Huffington Post are the latest media spots to address the question of why the c-section rate is so high and the VBAC rate so low in the USA. Consumer Reports investigations concluded that US hospitals are over-using medical technology in childbirth and lists a c-section at #3 of "12 surgeries you may be better off without." I encourage all women to read the articles and develop your own opinion. It is not the first time the medical community in the USA has taken a natural evolutionary process, birth, and in a genuine attempt to help out, has managed to twist the entire process such that women are at greater risk of complications. Ask your great-grandmothers, grandmothers, and mothers - who remembers their births as a happy, joyful experience. Or who remembers a painful, frightening process? So far, I've found that women who are in full control of their birthing experience, whether in hospital with epidural, c-section, or going natural at home, they are the ones who love their births. Women who have been directed like servants and treated as if they were sick speak of their births as though they are battle stories.
This isn't how it should be. My c-section was a necessary, life saving procedure. But the incidence of my affliction, placental abruption, is less than 10%-15%. What is happening to the rest of the women in the USA being operated on? We are not all ill or afflicted. If I am safer, healthier and happier to deliver vaginally, I should be supported in hospital. Not cut open.
Time Magazine -
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1880665,00.html
Huffington Post (same author) -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pamela-paul/childbirth-without-choice_b_168652.html
Consumer Reports -
http://www.consumerreports.org/health/free-highlights/manage-your-health/needless_surgeries.htm
and
http://www.consumerreports.org/health/medical-conditions-treatments/pregnancy-childbirth/maternity-care/overview/maternity-care.htm
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