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You seem to be dismissing the phenomenon of needless c-sections, but it is real. At the birth of my 2nd child the OB started complaining that the birth wasn't

You seem to be dismissing the phenomenon of needless c-sections, but it is real. At the birth of my 2nd child the OB started complaining that the birth wasn't "making progress" even though it was only in the 5th hour and a simple analysis of the interval between contractions showed an obvious trend. The OB just wanted to go do something else. Naturally, I asked him to leave, and the birth was attended by some quite reasonable nurses. The only way to survive American health "care" is to know your facts and advocate for your own interests. The average physician in this country is mostly interested in billing you and moving on.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago
> You seem to be dismissing the phenomenon of needless c-sections, but it is real. I never said it wasn't real I simply said it's in a minority of cases because it is. I've met dozens of OBGYNs who all think needless c-sections are simply unethical and who would never do them. But just as your experience mine is yet another anecdote. c-sections in general are not a majority of births. Needless ones should be a subset of that (though because of the way reporting is done it's hard to determine which ones are and are not needless).
- manmal 10y ago
  Here in Austria, you generally cannot choose to have a C section - you either need it or you don't get it.
- thrownaway2424 10y ago
  Sure they aren't the majority, but even having 25% of births be primary cesarean is ridiculous. The rate of cesarean for low-risk births is driven by policy, tradition, and unfortunately also profit motive. Simple changes in policy have dramatic influence on the cesarean rate, which strongly implies that the procedures were not medically indicated. For example the rate of cesareans for ordinary full-term, low-risk births in the US declined 6 percentage points after 2009, simply because the ACOG put out a statement about them. WHO says that the rate should be 15%, leaving half of US cesareans unexplained by medical necessity.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago

> You seem to be dismissing the phenomenon of needless c-sections, but it is real. I never said it wasn't real I simply said it's in a minority of cases because it is. I've met dozens of OBGYNs who all think needless c-sections are simply unethical and who would never do them. But just as your experience mine is yet another anecdote. c-sections in general are not a majority of births. Needless ones should be a subset of that (though because of the way reporting is done it's hard to determine which ones are and are not needless).

manmal 10y ago
Here in Austria, you generally cannot choose to have a C section - you either need it or you don't get it.
thrownaway2424 10y ago
Sure they aren't the majority, but even having 25% of births be primary cesarean is ridiculous. The rate of cesarean for low-risk births is driven by policy, tradition, and unfortunately also profit motive. Simple changes in policy have dramatic influence on the cesarean rate, which strongly implies that the procedures were not medically indicated. For example the rate of cesareans for ordinary full-term, low-risk births in the US declined 6 percentage points after 2009, simply because the ACOG put out a statement about them. WHO says that the rate should be 15%, leaving half of US cesareans unexplained by medical necessity.