There’s widespread agreement within the public health community that the percentage of women who deliver by Cesarean Section these days is too high. In fact, 1/3 of women in the US have cesarean deliveries these days (up from 9.5% in 1990 and 23% in 2008).
Last week the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine collaborated to produce an Obstetric Care Consensus document entitled Safe Prevention of the Primary Cesarean Delivery, which provides new research analyses and interpretation to help “…health care providers to understand the short-term and long-term tradeoffs between cesarean and vaginal delivery, as well as the safe and appropriate opportunities to prevent overuse of cesarean delivery, particularly primary cesarean delivery.” The consensus seems to be that it’s safe to let someone labor longer than had been previously recommended.
When we amended our regulations that govern the practice of licensed professional midwives in AZ, we allowed for the new guidelines that we hoped were coming out. This long awaited document will provide clinicians and our licensed midwives with evidence-based information they can use to help more of their patients have a successful vaginal delivery.
The majority of C-sections are done for the convenience of the doctor and their high end patients. Midwives are not doing C-sections you are idiots if you think that! Do a statistical analysis on the women who had C-sections in the last 20 years and they will be well heeled working women who want to make it easy for themselves with a scheduled elective surgery. This is not illegal but borderline unethical on the part of the doctors who you should be regulating not the midwives so stay out of this you are so ignorant!