According to Time magazine, “Choosy Mothers Chose Cesarians“. Just like choosy mothers pick the best day care or pre-school or what kind of food to feed their children? Well not exactly.
“Rates of C-sections have been climbing each year in the past decade in the U.S., reaching a record high of 31% of all live births in 2006. That’s a 50% increase since 1996. Around the world, the procedure is becoming even more common: in certain hospitals in Brazil, fully 80% of babies are delivered by caesarean. How did a procedure originally intended as an emergency measure become so popular? And is the trend a bad thing?”
Well one way it became so popular might be by referring to it as a procedure instead of major surgery. But is it the mothers who are actually driving the numbers up, as the headline implies? Guess again.
“Some of the rise in C-sections can certainly be attributed to women with routine pregnancies… who make a pragmatic decision to keep their deliveries just as uneventful. Preliminary data suggest that such cases account for anywhere from 4% to 18% of the total number of cesareans.“
So never mind that the headline makes it sound as if this is the delivery method of choice for Moms who care about their kids, the reality is that only a small percentage of these numbers is attributable to maternal choice.
According to the article, better surgery outcomes, obesity and multiple births also contribute to the increased rates of cesarians and one OB opines that giving birth is now less about the miracle of giving birth and more about delivering the kid “safely and without incident.” Okay, let’s say this again, cesarian sections are a kind of major surgery and major surgery is risky.
But as the article points out,
“(There) are some powerful fiscal forces as well, such as soaring malpractice rates for obstetricians. Since doctors are sued more frequently after vaginal births than cesareans, surgery is often the prudent choice when there is even the slightest indication of a difficult vaginal birth.Vaginal delivery can, for example, lead to future incontinence and pelvic damage, while babies born by C-section may suffer from respiratory problems because of not being exposed to certain hormones during the birthing process.”
Well yes indeed, it would certainly be more prudent for the doctor who consequently makes more money and doesn’t have to bother with the fuss and muss of being sued, but just an observation, most women who deliver vaginally do not have ongoing incontinence problems. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but if it were that big a deal, the adult diaper section at the grocery store would be a whole lot bigger and not to belabor (sorry) the point, but C-section risks are about a whole lot more than the baby not being exposed to certain hormones. It is also about the baby being exposed to anesthesia, the mother having a major incision in her gut and a longer recovery period with a whole lot more risk of complications than recovery from a vaginal birth. It should also be pointed out that the U.S. has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the ‘developed’ world, a number that has been attributed in part to high C-section rates.
No doubt there are times when a C-section is totally necessary but when the rate of those times suddenly skyrockets over a few years to more than 30% of the time, it isn’t about medical necessity. It is about medical greed and mothers being given very poor information about the birthing process and the extent to which medical decisions are de facto being made by insurance companies.
Reproductive Rights: The Abortion Conversation That We Should Be Having
Reproductive Rights: The Abortion Conversation That We Should Be Having
by Lucinda Marshall
Far too often, I have the nagging feeling that we’re having the wrong discussion. About what? Pretty much darned near everything but none more so than the endless pro-life vs. pro-choice debate.
During a recent community conversation in Louisville, KY, Loretta Ross, the National Coordinator of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, offered what I think is a far more productive framework for discussing the abortion issue. Ross posits that abortion is only part of the issue of reproductive health and rights, which she points out include not only the right not to have a child but also the right to have a child.
On their website, SisterSong defines reproductive justice as an intersectional theory that integrates reproductive health and social justice emerging from the “experiences of women of color whose communities experience reproductive oppression. It is based on the understanding that the impact on women of color of race, class and gender are not additive but integrative, producing this paradigm of intersectionality.” The site also points out that,
Obviously that language goes far beyond the run-of-the-mill pro/anti abortion rhetoric. By using this framework, we can start to see abortion not as an isolated issue of choice, but part of a far more complex set of issues. And the truth is, despite Roe v. Wade, “choice”, like so many other choices is a right of privilege. If you are poor, or live far from a clinic, there is not much of a choice.
Ross also stressed that abortion needs to be seen as a human rights issue and points to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which declares the right of every person to live free of slavery. And being forced to bear children is most certainly a form of slavery as Ross is quick to point out.
The flip side of the abortion rights issue, the right to have children is every bit as important a matter within the framework of Reproductive Justice. Although it is an issue in this country, it is even more so in less developed nations that have high maternal mortality rates.
Every year, more than half a million women die of complications of pregnancy and childbirth as a result of economic, cultural and political injustice. More than 99% of those deaths are preventable. Jane Roberts, co-founder of 34 Million Friends of UNFPA, points out that, “Lack of family planning commodities and of health care workers to educate about and furnish family planning to eager consumers is the root cause of the 40 million abortions which take place every year, half of which are risky, illegal, unsafe. If the world really cared for its women, this would not be happening. About 70,000 women die during the abortion or the immediate aftermath, millions more suffer temporary or permanent disability. Then they are “compassionately” offered PAC (post-abortion care) by our government and others.”
Yet as a recent U.N. report points out, the “sharp decline in international funding for reproductive health is threatening global efforts to reduce poverty, improve health and empower women worldwide.” According to Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the U.N. Population (UNFPA), “The result is increasing numbers of unwanted pregnancies, rising rates of unsafe abortion, and increased risks to the lives of women and children.” Obaid also noted that, “research indicates that ensuring access to family planning alone would reduce maternal deaths by 20 to 35 percent and child deaths by 20 percent.”
As Ross points out, it isn’t that choice is not an issue, but rather that it is one of many connected reproductive justice issues that need to be addressed. And that is the conversation we should be having.