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Facts

17 July, 2001

The quintessential example of medicalizationand dehumanization of birth is unnecessary ce-Ž.sarean section CS in which the surgeon is incharge and the woman no longer has any control.CS saves lives but there is no evidence that risingCS rates the past two decades in many countrieshas improved birth outcomes 6,7 . How can thisbe? As indications for CS broaden and rates goup, lives are saved in a smaller and smaller pro-portion of all CS cases. But the risks of this majorsurgical procedure do not decrease with increas-ing rates. It is only logical that eventually a rate isreached at which CS kills almost as many babiesas it saves.

05 Dec, 2017

You might expect your doctor to recommend what they think best during childbirth, but it’s not uncommon to feel pressured into having a procedure that you don’t want. Rebecca Grant reports on the ethics and law of consent in the delivery room.

Kimberly Turbin wasn’t expecting childbirth to be a pleasant experience, but she wasn’t expecting it to be a nightmare either. (…) “I didn’t know he did that until I saw my video,” says Turbin. “Nobody could tell me why and that’s what bothered me. I was so mad he forced me to do something I didn’t want to do.

04 September, 2017

Experimental data have linked labor avoidance to altered stress responses, immune function, and epigenetic processes in offspring (). A number of epidemiological studies have also been conducted, to determine the eventual impact of birth by C-section on health risks during infancy; here, we summarize these findings: Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), Celiac Disease, Allergic Diseases and Asthma, Obesity, and C-Section alters the postnatal establishment of gut microbiota in the newborn.

 

01 September, 2014

It has long been reported that there are cases that show thinning of the myometrium or irregular bleeding after cesarean section, which has been referred to as post-cesarean syndrome. Although varied in reports, such symptoms occur in approximately 7% of cases after cesarean section. In this study, we examined the possibility that the accumulation of exudate from the wound of a previous cesarean section disturbed implantation of the embryo in the next pregnancy and whether it is possible to get pregnant again and safe birth can be attained with conservative treatment.

01 November, 2016

Studies have shown that cesarean delivery is associated with fewer subsequent births relative to vaginal delivery, but it is unclear whether confounding by pregnancy intention or indication for surgery explained these results. We evaluated the association between cesarean delivery and subsequent fecundability among 910 primiparous women after singleton live birth.

12 October, 2018

Jane Sandall, professor of social science and women’s health at King’s College London and an author of one of the studies, told the BBC that the risk for mothers and babies can be both short and long-term.

“In particular, C-sections have a more complicated recovery for the mother, and lead to scarring of the womb, which is associated with bleeding, abnormal development of the placenta, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirth and preterm birth in subsequent pregnancies.”

 

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