Cesarean Quotes

The final patient of a comically busy prenatal clinic requests an elective cesarean section because of a previous traumatic vaginal delivery. This is a fairly common request—principally because there’s no such thing as a nontraumatic vaginal delivery.

Today, what's normal is being redefined: from vaginal birth to surgical birth; from 'My water broke,' to 'Let's break your water;' from 'It's time' to 'It's time for the induction.' As medical anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd writes, 'in the early twenty-first century, we do not know what normal birth is.' Most practicing obstetricians have never witnessed an unplugged birth that wasn't an accident. Women are even beginning to deny normal birth to themselves: if 'normal' means being induced, immobilized by wires and tubes, sped up with drugs, all the while knowing that there's a good chance of surgery, well, might as well just cut to the chase, so to speak. 'Just give me a cesarean,' some are saying. And who can blame them? They want to avoid what they think of as normal birth.

There’s a reason they call childbirth labor. Making a healthy baby takes effort: It requires foresight and self-denial and courage. It’s expensive and demanding and tiring. You have to learn new things, change many habits, possibly deal with complicated medical situations, make difficult decisions, and undergo stressful ordeals. I had a wisdom tooth pulled without Novocaine while I was pregnant—it hurt a lot and seemed to go on forever. The kindness of the very young dental assistant, holding back my hair as I spat blood into a bowl, will stay with me for the rest of my life. Pregnant women do such things, and much harder things, all the time. For example, they give birth, which is somewhere on the scale between painful and excruciating. Or they have a cesarean, as I did, which is major surgery. None of this is without risk of death or damage or trauma, including psychological trauma. To force girls and women to undergo all this against their will is to annihilate their humanity. When they undertake it by choice, we should all be grateful.

Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section.

Teaching you is like having a cesarean section every day of the week.

We are only beginning to understand the importance and nature of a woman’s vaginal microbiome. Babies born by Cesarean section are robbed of this initial wash. The consequences for the baby can be profound. Various studies have found that people born by C-section have substantially increased risks for type 1 diabetes, asthma, celiac disease, and even obesity and an eightfold greater risk of developing allergies.

I’m so sick of that argument. I’ve been hearing it for centuries. Playing God. Wolfgang, we played God when people believed they could dictate their baby’s gender by having sex in a certain position. We played God when we invented birth control, amniocentesis, cesarean sections, when we developed modern medicine and surgery. Flight is playing God. Fighting cancer is playing God. Contact lenses and glasses are playing God. Anything we do to modify our lives in a way that we were not born into is playing God. In vitro fertilization. Hormone replacement therapy. Gender reassignment surgery. Antibiotics.

Childbirth is more admirable than conquest, more amazing than self-defense, and as courageous as either one. Yet one of the strongest, most thoughtful feminists I know still hides in one-piece bathing suits to conceal her two Cesarean scars. And one of the most hypocritical feminists I know (that is, one who loves feminism but dislikes women) had plastic surgery to remove the tiny scar that gave her face character.

In retrospect, it is evident that highlighting abortion rather than reproductive rights as a whole reflected the class biases of the women who were at the forefront of the movement. While the issue of abortion was and remains relevant to all women, there were other reproductive issues that were just as vital which needed attention and might have served to galvanize masses. These issues ranged from basic sex education, prenatal care, preventive health care that would help females understand how their bodies worked, to forced sterilization, unnecessary cesareans and/or hysterectomies, and the medical complications left in their wake. Of all these issues individual white women with class privilege identified most intimately with the pain of unwanted pregnancy. And they highlighted the abortion issue. They were not by any means the only group in need of access to safe, legal abortions. As already stated, they were far more likely to have the means the to acquire an abortion than poor and working-class women. In those days poor women, black women included, often sought illegal abortions. The right to have an abortion was not a white-women-only issue; it was simply not the only or even most important reproductive concern for masses of American women.

Saturday, November 4, 2006 Get bleeped to see a postpartum patient at 1:00 a.m. The OR staff relay to the bleeping midwife that I’m in the middle of a cesarean. I get bleeped again at 1:15 a.m. (still doing the section) and 1:30 a.m. (writing up my operation notes). Eventually, I head off to assess the patient. The big emergency? She’s going home in the morning and wants to have her passport application countersigned by a doctor while she’s still in here.

Midwives provide all the prenatal care healthy women need. The midwifery ideal is to work with each woman and her family to identify her unique physical, social, and emotional needs. In general, midwifery care is associated with fewer episiotomies, fewer instrumental deliveries, fewer epidurals, and fewer cesarean sections. Midwives are trained to identify the relatively small percentage of births in which complications develop and to refer these to obstetricians.

But many of women’s body scars have a very different context, and thus an emotional power all their own. Stretch marks and Cesarean incisions from giving birth are very different from accident, war, and fight scars. They evoke courage without violence, strength without cruelty, and even so, they’re far more likely to be worn with diffidence than bragging. That gives them a moving, bittersweet power, like seeing a room where a very emotional event in our lives once took place.

You leave the womb sterile, or so it is generally thought, but are liberally swabbed with your mother’s personal complement of microbes as you move through the birth canal. We are only beginning to understand the importance and nature of a woman’s vaginal microbiome. Babies born by Cesarean section are robbed of this initial wash. The consequences for the baby can be profound. Various studies have found that people born by C-section have substantially increased risks for type 1 diabetes, asthma, celiac disease, and even obesity and an eightfold greater risk of developing allergies. Cesarean babies eventually acquire the same mix of microbes as those born vaginally—by a year their microbiota are usually indistinguishable—but there is something about those initial exposures that makes a long-term difference. No one has figured out quite why that should be.

Sauté, stirring regularly, the butter, onions, garlic, baby leaves, thyme, a pinch of salt and few grinds of pepper, until the onions are translucent. Meanwhile, remove the cord, membranes, and any clots from the placenta. Rinse it under cold water. Quarter it, set three quarters aside for another use, and add the remaining quarter to the sauté. Remove placenta when it is cooked through. Slice thin and set aside. Continue cooking the onions, stirring regularly, until they become brown.Add wine and simmer until the liquid evaporates and the onions lose their form. Add flour. Mix well. With a low flame, cook, stirring regularly, for 5 minutes. Add water, beef, placenta or chicken stock, and sliced placenta. Simmer for 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. To serve: preheat broiler. In oven-friendly serving bowls or pot, cover the hot soup with cubed sourdough bread and the bread with grated cheese. Broil until the cheese melts

Mochi Makes about 2 cups, or 15 balls 2 cups sweet brown rice ¼ tsp sea salt ½ cup toasted chopped nuts or seeds   Soak rice for 6–1 0 hours. Drain and discard soaking water. Rinse. Add fresh water to cover. Bring to a boil. When boiling, lower heat, cover, and simmer for 50 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to rest for 10 minutes.Add salt. Place rice in a heavy-duty electric mixer and knead for 10 minutes or until 90% of the grains are broken open and the mixture is sticky and smooth. Alternately, using a large wooden pestle (or baseball bat), vigorously pound the rice for 20 minutes or until the grains are broken and the rice becomes sticky and smooth. Roll mochi into small balls about the size of a walnut shell. Then roll the balls in the toasted nuts or seeds and serve.

The more I learn, the more whatever faith I had in the system dissolves.

A cesarean takes 88 percent less time to perform than a vaginal birth while producing almost twice the revenue.

EFM certainly seems like a good idea. A machine that measures and records a baby’s response to contractions provides scientific data about a particular woman’s labor. Logic says—and many people assume—that EFM improves birth outcomes. Actually, three decades of research shows that EFM doesn’t improve birth outcomes. When EFM is used during labor, no fewer babies die and no fewer have problems at birth. However, more women have cesareans when EFM is used.21 If EFM doesn’t help babies and puts mothers at higher risk of surgical intervention, it is not safer care. In 1988, a Harvard Medical School report described EFM as a “failed technology” but also predicted that doctors wouldn’t stop using it because they fear being sued. Fear of malpractice litigation is pervasive in obstetrics. Doctors too often make patient-care decisions based on their fear of a lawsuit rather than on evidence-based standards of practice established by their profession.

Except when I was born. My god, I was so fat. I almost killed my mother. And while that’s gross, it’s completely true. If we lived in a time before cesarean sections, she wouldn’t have survived. (I would also like to thank cesarean sections for sparing me the mental anguish of knowing I once passed through my mother’s vaginal canal.)

Can I drink and eat in labor? • If I go into labor, check in to the hospital, and my labor slows down before I get very far, can I go home? • What is your induction rate? What methods do you use? • Can I walk around in labor? • Is there a time limit for labor? How long can I push? • Can I choose the position for giving birth? Can I give birth on my hands and knees if I like that position? • What is your cesarean rate? • This may seem a personal question, but [if female] can I ask if you ever gave birth vaginally? • This may seem a personal question, but [if male and a father] can I ask if any of your children were born vaginally? • What is your forceps and vacuum-extraction rate? • Will you cut the umbilical cord after it quits pulsating? • Can you put my baby on my chest (skin-to-skin contact) after birth?

Babies who are born via Cesarean section have a higher risk of developing ADHD, but why? Understanding the links in the chain give credence to the importance of healthy gut bacteria to sustain intestinal health and overall wellness. When a baby passes through the birth canal naturally, billions of healthy bacteria wash over the child, thereby inoculating the newborn with appropriate probiotics whose pro-health effects remain for life. If a child is born via C-section, however, he or she misses out on this shower of sorts, and this sets the stage for bowel inflammation and, therefore, an increased risk of sensitivity to gluten and ADHD later in life.12

Cesarean delivery (for labor abnormalities) in the absence of clear cephalopelvic disproportion is generally reserved for arrest of active phase and ROM with adequate uterine contractions for at least 4 hours, or inadequate uterine contractions for at least 6 hours.

Sex hormones/Reproductive health history. Sex hormone imbalances can be a factor in Hashimoto’s, and here is some of the information I ask for on my health history forms: Do you currently take, or have you taken oral contraceptives or bioidentical hormones? Do you currently take, or have you had an intrauterine device (IUD)? If you answered “yes,” was it a copper or hormonal IUD? How many live births have you had? Were they natural births or Cesarean sections? Is there a history of ovarian cysts? Is there a history of uterine fibroids? Is there a history of endometriosis? Is there a history of fibrocystic breasts?

I was trying to remember how to spell ‘cesarean,’ so I looked it up in the dictionary. I was looking under the letter ‘s,’ but then I remembered it was in the C-section.

lowest concentration of plasma sodium also had prolonged second stage of labour, and were more often delivered instrumentally or by emergency cesarean section for failure to progress.

High anxiety may slow down labor, which may lead to medical interventions such as the use of oxytocin or other drugs, epidural block, or cesarean section. (L.

Barbie is a space-age fertility symbol: a narrow-hipped mother goddess for the epoch of cesarean sections. She is both relentlessly of her time and timeless. To such overripe totems as the Venus of Willendorf, the Venus of Lespugue, and the Venus of Dolni, we must add the Venus of Hawthorne, California.

There are two rules to follow in the presence of a laboring woman. The first is: Don’t talk, move, think or breathe when she is in the middle of a surge. In all fairness, Ben does not know I’m having a “real” surge this time. But rule two is that you must know everything going on with the woman without being told.

Where before I thought parents were the odd ones, now I realize that non-parents are the ones who just don’t get it. They can’t. There is no way to understand how all-consuming and identity-changing being a parent is without becoming one.

Backache, edema, heartburn… What else?” She took a sip of her cider. “Something they call ligament pains that feel remarkably like a wide-awake cesarean section.” He winced. “I pee on the half hour.” He laughed. “You think it’s funny? A few more years, when your prostate is a bit larger, you won’t think it’s all that funny.” “I hope it’s more than just a few more years, Ab,” he said. But he smiled. He touched her hand, gave it a little squeeze.

In a medical study, it turned out that obstetricians in areas with declining birth rates are much more likely to perform cesarean-section deliveries than obstetricians in growing areas—suggesting that, when business is tough, doctors try to ring up more expensive procedures.

It would be much scarier, even dangerous, to give birth in a place where no one knew sign language. The Deaf community was replete with hospital horror stories, particularly of the labor and delivery variety. Her mother’s friend Lu had been wheeled into the OR without anyone telling her that she was about to have a cesarean; a woman down in Lexington had died from a blood clot after nursing staff ignored the complaints of pain she’d scrawled on a napkin.

Jackie Chan’s parents were so poor that they had to consider selling him to pay for the $200 hospital bill after he was born through cesarean surgery. His father borrowed the money and ate dog food for two-years to save cash.

The evidence in favor of doulas comes from more than eleven carefully designed studies: Quite simply, hiring one cuts in half the odds of your having an unnecessary cesarean.

around abortion instituted by antichoice governors, high rates of cesarean sections and maternal mortality, and prohibitive healthcare costs—doulas are providing crucial support to pregnant clients and medical staff alike.

there is no difference in the legal theories used to restrict abortion and those used to justify forcing a woman to have cesarean surgery.

A woman is four times more likely to die having a cesarean section than a vaginal birth.

Helen Sandland, an obstetrician in Wilmington, North Carolina, resigned in June 2005 after hospital administrators told her to increase her cesarean rate, which was a modest 10%.

Nearly a third of babies born in hospitals in the United States are delivered via cesarean section, often due to the cautionary nature of modern obstetrical practice.2 Among seventeen thousand home births in a recent study conducted by the Midwives Alliance of North America, only 5.2 percent needed to go the hospital for a C-section.

In biology and medicine, there were several noteworthy contributions by Arabs. Al-Razi wrote the first book on smallpox, called, ‘Al-Judri wa al-Hasba’. Ibn-e-Sina’s Canon of Medicine was used as a standard medical text in even as late as the 17th century in Europe. Al-Zahravi was one of the pioneer surgeons and he developed various surgical instruments and methods, which were state of the art at that time and some are still used today. He is also reported to have performed the first cesarean operation. Ibn al- Nafis described the pulmonary circulation of the blood quite a few centuries before William Harvey.

A Louisiana surgeon perfected the cesarean section by experimenting on the enslaved women he had access to in the 1830s.

Prescribed positions aren’t selected by the birthing person listening to the inner signals of their body. They aren’t adopted due to where the pain or pressure urges room. The body or the baby gives the nudge. The prescription, like the epidural, doesn’t allow a spontaneous choice. Signals from the body are overridden by social agreement (compliance) or numbed out.

Know the pelvis like your sock drawer on a dark night at midnight and you’ll know what birth position will make room in the pelvis. When something unusual happens, you’ll be better equipped to make unique adaptations to restore birth to nature’s flow.

Meanwhile, some private schools even enroll students at birth. At the Wetherby School in England, a school Princes William and Harry attended, the spaces reserved by newborns fill up early each month, and the school advises women scheduling cesarean sections to have them on the first of the month, if possible, to get a place before all the spots are gone.

Why in the world would any woman reject this modern technological machinery? You research the literature and discover that while you were trained to use the electronic monitor in medical school and during your residency, that, actually, babies do not benefit when electronic monitoring is used. Babies do just as well when only the stethoscope is used. But mothers don’t do as well when they are on electronic monitoring. They are greatly harmed by suffering a tripled rate of cesareans. Since the babies don’t benefit by this monitoring, then this increase of surgery represents unnecessary surgery.

out of five scientific studies (randomized controlled trials) of fetal monitors, four showed no differences in outcome for the babies whether the fetal monitor was used or not.5 Only one showed an improved outcome for the babies, and that study has been severely criticized for poor scientific methodology.6 Dr. A. D. Haverkamp of Denver told the Central Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 1975 that research showed no difference in the health or survival rate of babies when internal electronic fetal heart monitoring was used to manage deliveries. But the big difference, he said, was in the cesarean-section rate. It was 16.5 percent in the group of women who underwent electronic fetal monitoring but only 6.8 percent in the group whose births were managed by frequent use of the stethoscope to check the baby’s well-being.7 Clearly, repeated scientific studies show that the baby does not benefit when the mother is electronically monitored. These studies show that the major difference in outcome when the fetal monitor is used is for the mother. The cesarean surgery rate is as much as tripled!

A cesarean section is a wound that impedes normal digestive function, function that must resume following surgery. Breast milk is delayed. Seven layers of tissue and muscle are severed.

anesthetic, darling,” interjects Mum. “Or a nice cesarean!

the risks associated with VBAC are lower than the risks associated with repeat Cesarean.

Stretch marks and Cesarean incisions from giving birth are very different from accident, war, and fight scars. They evoke courage without violence, strength without cruelty, and even so, they’re far more likely to be worn with diffidence than bragging.

What makes for a successful birth experience is a calm, empowered woman with a supportive VBAC-friendly birth team that allows the birthing woman to be involved in all the decisions about her birth and body.