http://www.birthaction.org/Blogs/tabid/66/EntryId/36/Are-Birth-Centers-Making-the-Right-Choices.aspx
Right now, cesareans are 1/3 of all births per year. Choosing not to do VBACs is a choice to further limit your practice and since they are growing exponentially, it’s also making sure that long-term, you will be run out of practice. Birth centers are already scrambling for turf, this can’t help.
A pregnant woman’s pleas not to have an unnecessary caesarean are being ignored by Page Hospital administrators.
Joy Szabo, 32, said she is upset with Page Hospital’s general ruling in June prohibiting vaginal births after cesareans (VBAC). The mother of three children, she has given birth to all of her children at Page Hospital, the only hospital in the immediate area. A placenta eruption caused her to have an emergency cesarean delivering her second child, but the hospital allowed her third child to be delivered naturally two years ago.
http://www.lakepowellchronicle.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&story_id=1849&page=77
Now there is one more reason for women to consider their childbirth options and to fight for their right to thorough, unbiased and accurate information when thinking about what kind of birth for which they’d like to plan. According to US News & World Report, a new study undertaken at the University of Colorado, Denver, School of Medicine, found that repeat cesarean sections are not only riskier to newborn health than VBACs (vaginal birth after a previous cesarean section) but also result in a more costly birth.
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/05/22/risking-future-studying-repeat-csections-vbacs
I am a huge — HUUUGE — supporter of VBAC and HBAC births. While I am sure that a good majority of the 33% of women who are cut open on any given day in the United States to have their babies pulled from within believe that it HAD to happen that way, the simple fact of the matter is that 1 in 3 babies does NOT need to be born via c-section. We are witnessing an interventions domino effect of the worst kind – one that impacts women and their health and their birth experiences, and one that impacts their babies equally as much — their health, well being, and start in life.
http://drmomma.blogspot.com/2009/09/vbac-hbac-vbamc-resources.html
Early on the morning of Tuesday March 17, 2009 at about 5:45 a.m., I woke up with an urge to go to the bathroom (my stomach was cramping). Although my stomach really hurt, I figured once I used the bathroom I would feel better. However, that was not the case. After using the bathroom I slowly came to the conclusion that I was having contractions. They were two to six minutes apart so, I figured I would have a little while before they got closer; again however, that was not the case. By 6 a.m. my contractions were 3 minutes apart and were consistent for the next hour. By 7, I realized this was not a drill, so I woke hubby up. I didn’t quite want to call my midwife yet because the day before I was having contractions as well but they were sporadic. Although I knew this was it, I still wanted to be sure.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/midwife-baby-son-2395453-hours-hubby
In Florida, thousands of women per year try to find a care provider who will attend them during a trial of labor. For women pursuing a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean), this search often fails and their OB’s literally coerce them into a repeat cesarean without medical indication or informed consent. OB’s actively refuse to take on clients that are searching for VBAC, in complete violation of ethical care. Insurance companies refuse to cover out-of-pocket homebirths despite the improved outcomes and safety of “HBAC” babies, requiring women to go through lengthy appeals processes and leaving them wondering:
Does anyone care about the safety of the mother and the baby or is it all simply about protocols based in liability, fear and money?
The information collected here was collected to identify VBAC policies in individual hospitals. We wanted to identify those hospitals that have official bans against VBAC in place. If you have time, it would be worth calling these hospitals yourself and seeing what responses you get. You can find the contact information on the VBAC Hospital Policy Database.
http://alternativebirthservices.blogspot.com/2009/03/ican-state-by-state-vbac-hospital.html
Midwives At Southampton, England, Helping Women Who Have Previously Had A Caesarean Section To Choose A Normal Birth For Their Next Baby
17 Feb 2009
Nationally, the number of c-sections has dramatically increased over the last decade. This has led the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement to develop a toolkit to help midwives reduce these numbers.
This toolkit has been in development at Princess Anne Hospital for the last 18 months and during that time there has been a 4 per cent reduction in the number of c-sections. This is double the target reduction.
For many pregnant women in America, it is easier today to walk into a hospital and request major abdominal surgery than it is to give birth as nature intended. Jessica Barton knows this all too well. At 33, the curriculum developer in Santa Barbara, Calif., is expecting her second child in June. But since her first child ended up being delivered by cesarean section, she can’t find an obstetrician in her county who will let her even try to push this go-round.
Preganancy issues seem to be moving to the forefront of the medical and insurance industry these days. A growing number of women are up in arms over discoveries that unnecessary Cessarian delivery methods have become standard practice. Adding to the issue is the International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN)’s study indicting that more than 300 U.S. hospitals have banned Vaginal Birth After C-section (VBAC) – even though VBACs are safer for most women than a repeat c-section. As example, Medical Malpractice coverage exclusions within Oklahoma have dictated that virtually all that state’s women not be allowed VBAC.
Information about vaginal birth after cesarean.
Our first child, head askew, had to be delivered by Caesarean. We loved the obstetrical surgeon who extracted him: Dr. Burgee worked fast, made us laugh, and left almost no scar. He saved the lives of my wife and son. I thanked my stars we lived in a Caesarean world.
But the operation hit Alice hard. Her legs ballooned with fluid, stranding her in bed; her incision hurt every time she moved or nursed; and her milk production faltered, stunting Nick’s growth so that he required hospitalization. Mother and baby both took months to recover. So, two years later, when Alice got pregnant again, the first thing she said to our midwife, Martha, was, “Please tell me I don’t have to have another Caesarean.”
Problems With the First Recommendation in Level C: “Because uterine rupture may be catastrophic, VBAC [vaginal birth after cesarean] should be attempted in institutions equipped to respond to emergencies with physicians immediately available to provide emergency care.”
The first problem with this recommendation is that of the eight final recommendations, it is this one which has the largest impact on maternity care in the United States. Yet by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ (ACOG) own admission, there is no evidence to back up this recommendation. This is of course the reason this recommendation has been placed in Level C, thus making it ACOG’s confession that since there are no data, ACOG will simply have to go on the basis of “expert opinion.” This is a sad regression to the days of “Trust me, I’m a doctor”—in spite of the new direction of medical care to evidence-based practice.
A woman-centered, evidence based, resource.
In the United States more than one million women, 1 in 3, give birth by cesarean every year, the most common major operation performed in the country. Current evidence shows that the majority of women can have safe vaginal births after a prior cesarean (a VBAC), but according to the US Centers for Disease Control the VBAC rate fell 67% in the last ten years.