Doctors repeatedly blame patients for the high rate of Cesarean sections in this country. As one claimed in today’s New York Times letters column, parents demand “nothing short of a perfect outcome” from childbirth and sue when they don’t get it.
The reality is quite different.
Here’s what I wrote in a letter published in the same New York Times issue:
A fundamental patient safety issue is at the heart of our high C-section rate. The reason that hospitals must have staff “immediately available” for an emergency C-section is that when a mother’s uterus ruptures, the baby’s lifeline is cut off and brain damage begins in around 17 to 18 minutes, according to the best studies.
Rupture occurs in about 1 percent of vaginal birth after Caesarean (VBAC) attempts. That’s a high enough risk – with lifelong consequences to the child and his or her family – that only the reckless or the ill informed would tempt fate by trying delivery in a facility without an obstetrician immediately available to do an emergency C-section.
According to your article, hospitals complain of the risk of being sued for a bad outcome if they follow the old guideline of having the surgical team “readily available,” which allows calling in a team from outside the hospital, as opposed to “immediately available.”
We should not let semantics obscure safety. Instead of blaming lawsuits for the high C-section rate, the focus should be on hospitals that don’t want to invest the resources necessary to make VBAC safe for mothers and families.
My law firm’s website has more about VBAC and other types of birth injuries here and here.