Since time immemorial, natural birth was considered the best way to deliver a baby as it offered limited complications and faster recovery for mothers. Until five years back, the thought of a C-section was met with trepidation and mothers tried their best to go with what nature predestined as the best route to a healthy delivery. However, with the emergence of a new section of women labelled as those who are ‘too posh to push’, the option of bypassing a natural birth process for a simple cut-and-sew caesarean is being widely embraced.
A C-section, which was earlier performed only in case of emergency, is now being seen as a convenient form of delivery. In a country like India, 25 per cent of babies delivered are done so using a C-section. Of this number, 18 per cent of the surgeries are elective. However, a new research has now stated that C-sections that are unwarranted will leave mothers with at least 10 times more the risk of going into intensive care than those who gave birth naturally. That figure shot up to 67 times more likely to go into intensive care where labour had already started when the surgical delivery began.
Yap-Seng Chong, of the National University of Singapore, and Kenneth Kwek, of the department of maternal fetal medicine at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Singapore, wrote: “There is little wrong with medical interventions, but for those who are still inclined to consider caesarean delivery a harmless option, they need to take a cold hard look at the evidence against unnecessary caesarean sections.”
In a study published in Lancet Medical Journal, more than 100,000 births showed mums-to-be who had a caesarean section without medical need were 2.7 times more likely to have complications than those who gave birth naturally. While the study pointed out that the West was swinging back in favour of natural birth, a startling figure of 107,950 deliveries in nine countries – Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam – revealed that under a third of births were performed by caesarean section.
It is not that all expectant mothers can be dubbed ‘too posh to push’. A large percentage of mums, especially first timers, have a pathological fear of childbirth, fears pelvic floor problems developing later in life, and wants to avoid any genital trauma associated with natural birth. Such women would request for an elective C-section, however, doctors make these patients aware that they would have risk of haemorrhage, infection and more discomfort after the procedure.
Caesarean is not necessarily a safe option. There are huge conclusions that can be drawn from the current study, those that prompt a woman opting for an unnecessary C-section to look at scientific evidence before making a decision.
Article By Snigdha Taduri for Biomed-ME