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"Our midwives Cesarean-section rate is 1.7%."--Stephen Gaskin

[Current (2009) cesarean rates in the UK (where Walker's study was conducted) sit at 25% while c-section rates in the United States have skyrocketed to 37% (up from 32% in 2007). Canada's cesarean rate is at 28%.  35 years ago the U.S. and Canada shared a 5% c-section rate and just 20 years ago the UK still had a low 5% c-section rate.  This high rate is purely due to, lucrative, deliberately induced Birth trauma.]

See: Birth trauma   Electronic fetal monitor (EFM)

[2015 Jan] Why are Medical Professionals who Deliver Babies in Hospitals Choosing to have their Own Babies at Home?  Pregnant women who want to avoid surgical birth know they have to avoid the hospital.....“Women are having their bodies completely hijacked,” says Dr. Jennifer Lang, M.D., a 38-year-old board certified ob-gyn based in southern California who specializes in complex gynecologic surgery and has attended over 1,000 births. Although Dr. Lang gave birth to her first child at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, she chose to have her subsequent children at home.....“After a lot of research and time working in the hospital I realized that I felt safer delivering at home without the time constraints and medical equipment restrictions like continuous fetal monitoring,” Dodge explains in an email.   Continuous fetal monitoring, though the norm in most American hospitals, has been repeatedly shown to increase the likelihood of C-section and instrumental birth without improving fetal outcomes. Hospitals in Scandinavia, where the infant and maternal mortality rates are much lower than in the United States, have discontinued its use......“In residency I witnessed complications that we doctors cause. There were so many,” Dr. Fish explains as her pudgy 7-month-old daughter Kailani gums her shoulder."....“But if doctors could step back they would see that the vast majority of these complications happen because of things that are done to the mothers in the process of giving birth in the hospital. When you take away medicinal pain relief, epidurals, restriction of food and water, staff coming in and out of the room, and routine vaginal exams while women are in active labor, you can significantly reduce the complications that are caused by the interventions themselves. Moms do better without unnecessary interventions than they do when they’re overly managed.”

[2006] Continuous cardiotocography (CTG) as a form of electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) for fetal assessment during labour.   Continuous cardiotocography during labour is associated with a reduction in neonatal seizures, but no significant differences in cerebral palsy, infant mortality or other standard measures of neonatal well-being. However, continuous cardiotocography was associated with an increase in caesarean sections and instrumental vaginal births. The real challenge is how best to convey this uncertainty to women to enable them to make an informed choice without compromising the normality of labour.

Ritual Mutilations by Robert S. Mendelsohn, M.D.

[2009] C-Sections Cause Infertility or Emotional Trauma for 1 in 3 Women

Cesarian Birth and Relationships by Sondra Ray and Bob Mandell

The Emotional Ramifications of Being born in a Caesarean Delivery by Amy Lauren Shapira

Obstetrics and Gynaecology (OB/GYN)

[2011 Oct] Now all women have the right to NHS caesareans in hugely expensive move

[2015 Book] Birth Trauma, and the Dark Side of Modern Medicine:  Exposing the Systematic Violence During Hospital Birth and the Attempt to Hijack Our Souls by Jeanice Barcelo 

Websites
Cesarean Voices

Quotes
In 2001, Cesarean section is still the most common OB/GYN surgical procedure. Approximately 4 million births occur annually, with a 24% C-Section rate, i.e., 960,000 operations. In the Netherlands only 8% of babies are delivered by Cesarean section. Assuming human babies are similar in the U.S. and in the Netherlands, we are performing 640,000 unnecessary C-Sections in the U.S. with its three to four times higher mortality and 20 times greater morbidity than vaginal delivery.  The Cesarean section rate was only 4.5% in the U.S. in 1965. By 1986 it had climbed to 24.1%. The author states that obviously an “uncontrolled pandemic of medically unnecessary Cesarean births is occurring.”106 VanHam reported a Cesarean section postpartum hemorrhage rate of 7%, a hematoma formation rate of 3.5%, a urinary tract infection rate of 3%, and a combined postoperative morbidity rate of 35.7% in a high-risk population undergoing Cesarean section. Death by Medicine----Carolyn Dean, MD, ND, Martin Feldman, MD, Gary Null, PhD, Debora Rasio, MD (2003/4)

For more information on the statistics and implications of c-section also see:

International Cesarean Awareness Network


Born in the USA by Dr. Marsden Wagner

Pushed by Jennifer Block

The Caesarean by Dr. Michel Odent

Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering by Dr. Sarah Buckley

Birth & Breastfeeding by Dr. Michel Odent

Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin

The Thinking Woman's Guide to Better Birth by Henci Goer