A news article released online this week detailed plans for a new study to be conducted by Dr. Stephen Robson, an associate professor of obstetrics at Australian National University. Dr. Robson is recruiting 1000 women, 500 planning cesarean births and 500 planning vaginal births and will measure both physical and psychological outcomes, according to the article.
Reading the article leaves one with many questions. Dr. Robson asks what would happen if it is proven that it is “safer” for a healthy mother to have a cesarean birth. One is left wondering what he means by “safer.” Is he only considering “safety” in terms of that first cesarean delivery? Cesarean sections pose serious and documented medical risks to a mother’s health, and can have long lasting ramifications on her entire reproductive life. Each subsequent cesarean increases the risk of serious placental complications which can be risky for both mother and baby, and cesareans increase the odds of secondary infertility, miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy in subsequent pregnancies. For more information on the risks of cesareans, check out our Cesarean Fact Sheet.
Dr. Robson also posits that we could possibly “…do away with labour wards forever and save hundreds of millions of dollars.” Would a dramatic increase in cesarean deliveries really lower costs? Wouldn’t there be the possibility that more newborns would require NICU stays for reasons ranging from preterm delivery to not getting the benefits of normal, physiologic birth? What about the costs of the longer hospital stays, possible treatment of post-operative complications and the increased cost of performing the cesarean itself as opposed to the cost of a vaginal delivery?
Check out the article and leave your thoughts below. What do you think the results of the study will be? Do you think this could have an impact on whether women will opt for scheduled cesareans instead of vaginal births, at least in Australia?
6 Responses
What a dumb ASS!!
I am confident he will find that it is NOT safer for healthy, low risk women to deliver their babies via c/s. I am pretty sure he will also find that a vaginal birth prevents many complications due to c/s. We shall see.
Hasn’t this question been answered? Waste of time and resources.
I think if he’s going looking for a way to prove that cesareans are safer (which would seem to be his bias) he will find it. Unfortunately, biased research has lead to bad birthing trends in the past, some of which we’re still suffering under today.
I would be interested to see how he plans to assign women to the groups. Surely women assigned to have a “normal” birth who have a strong desire for csection will be markedly more dissatisfied and have a higher risk of psychologically poorer outcomes than those who get assigned to their preferred method of birth.
In terms of number of staff required, electively delivering every women operatively will require a huge number of additional staff – in the theatre there are two obstetricians, oda/odp, anaesthetist, scrub nurse, runner, midwife, possibly paediatrician. For normal births, that drops to potentially just one midwife. A straightforward morning list of sections can see 3 deliveries being performed – we averaged 10 births a day in my unit of 3500 births a year. This means operations would have to continue long into the evening / night, or would need two teams working at the same time. Add into the mix a few emergency births, and the idea becomes even more ridiculous.
Then add on the increased length of hospital stay, additional support required to move themselves, their babies and additional support needed to help them attach and breastfeed their babies (or perhaps he is also proposing that the women should all formula feed their babies to negate this additional “problem”)
In addition to the problems that he will incur in ensuring balanced randomly assigned and perfectly matched groups, I can’t imagine that just 1000 women is sufficient to reach statistical significance.
Frustrating, ridiculous, uninformed….as Meredith says, dumb ass!!
Why don’t we just use MAJOR surgery to put permanent catheters and colostomy bags to everyone at birth too because that HAS to be safer then doing what our body is designed to do. God forbid we ever get a urinary tract infection or constipation. GOD this doctor is infuriating. “Saving millions of dollars” – pftt … are you sure this is not just ‘another’ obstetric money making scheme? As we all know they make more money and so do their collegues (anaethatists) by performing a C/S. I cannot fathom how anyone can consider a C/S safter for a ‘normal, healthy woman’. Yes C/S are necessary for some women and in some circumstances but they are definatley NOT the safest option to birth a baby!