No matter how hard expectant moms try, labor and delivery rarely go as planned.
Sometimes this results in emergency C-sections, but a growing number of moms who say the rate of C-sections has risen dramatically, sometimes with dangerous complications.
I interviewed mother of two Jennifer Rusch, who says the birth of her first son Caleb didn’t go as planned.
Although most surgeries go well, doctors want moms to know C-sections are serious abdominal surgeries with serious risks. Maternal deaths have risen along with rates of C-sections.
“Eventually I was in a situation where I was having a caesarean section that I probably didn’t need if I made decisions differently earlier in my labor,” she said.
Rusch says even though she made the best choice with the information at hand, she and Caleb had some negative complications.
“The effects were I couldn’t hold my baby right after birth, in fact it took about 8 hours before I could hold him without help,” she said. “He had a lot of upper respiratory issues in his first year.”
The experience caused Rusch to help form a northeast Iowa chapter of “International Caesarean Awareness Network” or ICAN.
She wants more mothers to know the risks of C-sections and possible ways to avoid them.
Dr. Susan Lipinski at Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo confirms there have been an increase nationally in C-sections in the last few decades.
Some states have a rate as high as 38 percent. Iowa sits at 30 percent, although Covenant Medical Center’s rate is 24 percent.
Lipinski says more women are getting C-sections with their first child, and it creates a kind of domino effect, leading to more C-sections.
One of the main reasons behind a cesarean birth: obesity and its related diseases like pre-eclampsia, which raises a mother’s blood pressure, and diabetes.
“As we see more and more folks who are overweight and obese, we are seeing much higher rates of these diseases,” she said.
Dr. Lipinski also says many women simply want to plan ahead, and therefore plan to be induced.
“Folks don’t want to wait till their due date, not knowing when to get child care, they want to tell the family when to come, there are a lot of elective inductions done,” she said.
She says mothers have the right to request a C-section, as long as they understand the possible risks.
“Babies born after labor typically do better than babies born in C-sections,” she said. “C-section is a serious abdominal surgery that has potential risks, potential for large blood loss and potential for complications.”
Doctors say most surgeries go well, but with an increase in C-sections, there is also an increase in mothers dying, especially with successive surgeries because of scar complications and tearing.
“The first C-section is not always the risky one, it’s the second, third, fourth down the road that we keep escalating risks to moms,” Lipinski said.
There are options for women like Jennifer Rusch who first had a C-section.
She said she researched a great deal and decided to deliver second son Adrian by VBAC, or vaginal birth after cesarean.
“We’re doing far too many C-sections and we really, as women, need to be advocates for ourselves and ask the right questions so we can make informed choices,” Rusch said.
The birth went well, and Rusch wants to help other expectant moms understand their options so their baby’s birth leaves mom and baby as healthy as possible.
The World Health Organization recommends C-sections stay within 10 to 15 percent of births.
So what can mothers do to best prepare for labor? well, it starts before getting pregnant.
Doctors say when planning a pregnancy, get as close to your ideal weight as you can reasonably achieve.
The northeast Iowa chapter of the International Cesarean Awareness Network meets at Sartori Hospital in Cedar Falls on the 4th Tuesday evening of each month and provides free childcare.
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This post was written by qni_it on September 7, 2011
Thank you for the piece on Cesareans. I want to point out that there are many other factors leading to the rising C-section rate. Increasing levels of inductions, planned cesareans, cases of ‘too big’ babies, and hospitals with policies forbidding VBAC’s area also contributing to the rising rates. Along with inductions is the fact that many OB’s won’t ‘let’ mom’s go past 40 weeks gestation despite the fact that ACOG says that post dates is after 42 weeks (http://www.acog.org/publications/patient_education/bp069.cfm), a fact that largely goes unrecognized. Inductions when a woman’s body isn’t ready to go into labor do not usually go as planned which leads to more interventions and in many cases, Cesareans. VBAC’s carry less of a risk than repeat Cesareans, another fact that goes largely unnoticed.
Thank you for your comments Bethany. It is certainly a complicated issue!
My baby was so big that I was so grateful to have a c-section! I had no complications nor did my baby. However, I do not believe that c-sections should be the first choice. Good article.
After my incredibly disappointing prenatal appointment, I’ve been doing lots of research to prepare for my planned VBAC. My OB would not tell her VBAC success rate, and instead gave me the national success statistic. Also went on to tell me that I will be scheduled for a c/s anyway, and I won’t be allowed to go past 41 weeks. A normal pregnancy can last 42 weeks, and ultrasounds can be off horribly because most are given so late. US can also be off as much as a pound either way, trying to predict the weight of the baby, so the excuse of “a big baby” for a c/s when no other risks are present is super lame. There are hardly any options in Iowa-no free standing birth centers that would have less interventions, hospitals don’t do water births, midwives at Allen aren’t allowed to do VBACs, even when it means midwives have been proven to show greater success of a VBAC if attending. Iowa needs to get it together, and OBs need to stop believing birth is a medical procedure and relying on their “personal opinions” instead of scientific evidence.