Or lack of science, as the case may be. The second stage of my research into the C vs. V childbirth situation involved an attempt at an actual review of clinical findings. I forewarn that I am not a trained medical researcher nor a gifted statistician (plus I have no intention of citing my sources), so you'll have to trust that I was thorough. I should also point out that I should have known better than to use the internet to try to find legitimate information on this topic. It was like expecting the people of Fox News to report on anything in an accurate and objective way. Shudder.
Anyway, the internet is replete with webpages, most of which pass themselves off as scientific articles, that offer virtually nothing in the way of actual data to back up their claims. Or the actual data they refer to is misrepresented. Need I say that these articles all assert that natural childbirth is the best and healthiest way of bringing children into the world and that a caesarean poses very significant risks both to the mother and child. Also that caesareans are neither natural nor normal and the women who request them are so lazy and self-obsessed that they are willing to put their babies' very lives at risk in order to have things done according to silly and selfish whims.
Whoever was responsible for the wikipedia entry on this subject very aptly put that "childbirth is an inherently dangerous and risky activity". No argument there.
I'm listing the possible complications to mother and child in both vaginal and abdominal delivery below. Just for fun, I'm going to spell out what can be done after the fact to resolve each of these pesky problems, as well.
Natural Birth:
From what I could determine, the risks to the baby in a vaginal delivery include breech, failure of descent of head into the pelvic rim, and a variety of dystocias (loosely defined as obstructed or difficult birth) which can include the head and/or the shoulders being too big to navigate the mother's birth canal, poor uterine contraction strength (the mother is simply incapable of pushing hard enough), and the umbicial cord being wrapped around the neck. These can all lead to amazing things like fetal death, baby brain damage from lack of oxygen during delivery, and trachial nerve damage. Oh, and about 1 of every 5 births has some kind of complication or another. Oh, and they inevitably lead to emergency c-sections, otherwise, somebody's gonna die.
I am not a physician but I know for a fact that there's not really any recovery from brain damage, nerve damage, or death.
The risks to the mother include tears or epistiomies (stem to stern, ahem), prolapse (uterus falls down/slips out of place), post birthing incontinence of stool, urine, or both (urinary incontinence follows about 15% of births), sexual dysfunction, nerve damage, hemorrhage and infection.
Tears or epistiomies obviously are stitched up. Prolapse can be corrected surgically. Hemorrhage - blood transfusion, infection - antibiotics. There's unfortunately not a lot of help for the incontinence, nerve damage or sexual dysfunction.
This might sound a little crazy, but I think I would have a hard time convincing myself I'd made the right decision in going natural if afterward I peed myself constantly and couldn't feel my clitoris anymore. Or my bouncing baby had brain damage. Or both.
Caesarean:
Complications to a baby in a caesarean birth include wet lung (retention of fluid in the lungs that would ordinarily be squeezed out when eking their way through the birth canal), the potential of premature delivery in the case the date of conception has been miscalculated, and higher infant mortality rate, at 1.77 of every 1000 births, as opposed to 0.62 of every 1000.
Fluid retention is dealt with upon birth with some manner of suctioning device. I really did try, but couldn't find any info on long term complications of wet lung.
While you can't reverse premature delivery, I find it a little hard to believe that the fetus age could be so far miscalculated that the delivery would be dangerously early. Blood tests and ultrasounds have been used with reasonable accuracy to determine the stage of fetal development for decades.
I am in no position to argue the statistic regarding mortality rate, and I can't deny that there's no reversing death, however, a little detail into the causes of death may have been helpful. None was offered.
Complications to the mother are basically the same risks inherent to any abdominal surgery, which can include hemorrhage, infection (have I seen those words somewhere before?), internal or external scar tissue, and incisional hernia. The recovery period following surgery is reported to be longer than with a vaginal delivery as well, which interferes with the mom's ability to care for the newborn.
See above re hemmhorage and infection. Scar tissue and hernia can be surgically revised. The recovery period varies person by person. I won't deny that caesarean recovery does typically take longer. However, I would guess that Stem to Stern wasn't exactly ready to jump into baby care action within hours of the birth, either.
And now, the wrench.
There has been virtually no research into the risks of elective c-sections. All of the stats involving the risks of c-sections include those that have been scheduled on purpose for or have been performed as an emergency due to some kind of medical complication. There's no real way to determine which of the C complications arose out of the pre-existing complications and which arose from the c-section alone.
I found one, and only one, scholarly article that seemed at all non-biased and acknowledged the flaws in what we believe to be the risks of the big C. For one, it quoted a statement from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists which suggests that maybe the autonomy of the mother should be a factor in how a baby is delivered, which sort of blew my mind because nothing else that I read factored in what a mother may want for herself at all. Except, of course, for the endless stream of propaganda preaching that of course what a proper woman wants is to give birth naturally.
The article also goes on to refer to one of the only studies which compares elective c-sections to vaginal births, as follows:
"risk of perinatal or neonatal death or of serious neonatal morbidity was significantly lower in the planned caesarean group, with no significant increase in the risk of maternal death or serious maternal morbidity".
http://ecmaj.ca/content/170/5/813.full
I will not go on a full rant, but it sort of makes me spit with rage to know that your learned physician is giving you advice on which birthing method to choose, or flatly refusing to give you the c-section you request, based on statistical information which they know cannot possibly be accurate.
We have accepted that modern medical advances are safer than previous methods in almost all other areas. For example, our hospitals are shockingly leech-free.
Before I shut this down for the day, just one message towards everyone who insists that natural childbirth is superior just because it's natural. Think of all of the other medical advances that wouldn't be considered "natural" in a strict sense but improves our health and prevents early death. Penecillin, tonsillectomies, insulin and dialysis? Unless you are a devout Christian Scientist or similar and don't believe in medical treatment of illnesses, Shut the Fuck Up. (Poor Jean Harlow).*
*Jean Harlow, of course, is the starlet of the 1930's who died of renal failure at the age of 26. Ultimately she died in hospital, but not before spending some time ill and at home with her mother barring physicians from entering because they were Christian Scientists.
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