[scratcheee]

They already tried pushing back against c-sections, turns out giving overly opinionated options to women that discourages things that are medically beneficial in a large portion of cases is not helpful and caused a lot of unnecessary suffering and some deaths, now that policy is thankfully long gone, though the opinionated attitude it generated in some continues on sadly. my wife had a particularly large first baby, natural birth might have worked, but would have been risky, rather than being given unbiased options, she was pressured towards induction over c-section since it was “more natural” (I suspect mostly because it would have looked better in the hospitals stats to keep the c-sections down). The early induction failed after days of suffering (as early inductions usually do, turns out), and then she had a c-section anyway (which having reviewed the options was her original preference, but was pressured out by the doctor), the c-section was vastly more successful, as you’d expect from the statistics (and a lot less suffering, which doesn’t show up in the stats but is obvious once you concider the process). Im willing to agree neither should be recommended in most cases, natural births are safer in most births, but the best thing anyone can do is give the facts as they apply to the person giving birth (and keep their opinions well out of it).

I fully admit that personal experience has biased me strongly in favour of c-sections, but only when the stats support them, which they often do.

[dctoedt]

Dr. Atul Gawande† reported 20 years ago how obstetricians standardized on c-sections because the suppposedly-better alternative, forceps, (i) was very difficult to teach and supervise, and (ii) used incorrectly, could result in horrible injuries to both baby and mother:

<QUOTE>

The question facing obstetrics was this: Is medicine a craft or an industry?

If medicine is a craft, then you focus on teaching obstetricians to acquire a set of artisanal skills—the Woods corkscrew maneuver for the baby with a shoulder stuck, the Lovset maneuver for the breech baby, the feel of a forceps for a baby whose head is too big.

You do research to find new techniques.

You accept that things will not always work out in everyone’s hands.

But if medicine is an industry, responsible for the safest possible delivery of millions of babies each year, then the focus shifts.

You seek reliability.

You begin to wonder whether forty-two thousand obstetricians in the U.S. could really master all these techniques.

You notice the steady reports of terrible forceps injuries to babies and mothers, despite the training that clinicians have received.

After Apgar, obstetricians decided that they needed a simpler, more predictable way to intervene when a laboring mother ran into trouble.

They found it in the Cesarean section. [0]

</QUOTE>

(Formatting edited.)

† Surgeon, Rhodes scholar, MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" recipient, professor at Harvard Medical School, author of The Checklist Manifesto among many other things.

[0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/10/09/the-score