OBs have Pushed Pregnant Women into a Corner
By Danell Swim
February 26, 2008
A few years ago I noticed a sign on the wall at a local women’s clinic. It stated “Our doctors will no longer perform VBAC.” The sign made me laugh. VBAC stands for vaginal birth after cesarean. Since the doctors in that practice were males, it was difficult to imagine them performing a vaginal birth. Doctors do not perform vaginal births. Pregnant women do.
For women with past c-sections, the sign is not funny at all. This prohibition jettisons women’s rights back to the 1950s when the mantra was “Once a cesarean, always a cesarean.” Women are being robbed of a fundamental childbirth choice, even though studies confirm the safety of VBAC for most women.
Healthy People 2010 urges doctors to cut the cesarean rate in half, from more than 30 percent down to 15 percent by 2010. According to Dr. Marsden Wagner, former director of women’s and children’s health for the World Health Organization, international studies show that the optimal cesarean rate for a country is 10-15 percent.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is striking back. On Feb. 6, 2008, ACOG published a press release condemning homebirth. What the statement leaves unwritten is that every homebirth represents an economic loss of thousands of dollars for doctors and hospitals. After all, ACOG is essentially a trade union for the OBGYN industry. An anti-homebirth statement from ACOG is like an anti-tap water statement from Perrier.
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