According to two recent Radio National Health Reports (2nd November and 9th November) about one third of all babies being born in Australia are being delivered by Caesarean section, that is a surgical cut through the mother’s abdomen.
There are two main groups of women having caesareans: those who choose it and those who consent to it on medical advice either before or during labour. Of those, an estimated 18% request it for no medical reason- a recent phenomenon that has increased dramatically over the last decade. It’s not really well understood why women choose caesarean section without a medical reason. However, a study by the Cochrane Collaboration found that women’s birth choices were heavily influenced by three things:
- previous birth experience,
- their need for choice and control and
- especially their fear of a vaginal birth.
Fear of vaginal birth is very real, especially when women are at the mercy of a medical system using terminology and strategies that induce fear and lack of confidence in their bodies. And a system that promotes women to hand over the responsibility of their contraception, fertility and birthing to doctors, who in many cases are male. Because the mainstream medical system is based in the masculine principles of problem solving, and its main treatment strategies are surgery and pharmaceutical intervention, it ignores the emotional side of medical conditions.
Woman are not counseled when they express their fear of the pain of childbirth, but rather told that the solution is to remove the baby surgically – there is no ‘how come you’re feeling like that, let’s talk about it, let’s see what kinds of things can we work through to help you feel empowered and, how can we help you make an informed decision’.
Caesarean is NOT a safer option!
The truth is that caesareans involve major surgery and according to experts who have had long-term experience with the aftermath of caesareans, they are definitely not a safer option. Apart from the implications of cutting open the uterus and thereby weakening it for subsequent pregnancies, there is the problem of adhesions, which can have life-threatening effects, in the event of second and subsequent pregnancies.
According to obstetrician David Ellwood, the gravest outcome, Caesarean Scar Pregnancy, can be life-threatening and, with the increase in CS, is on the rise. This is where the embryo actually implants in the caesarean scar and starts to develop within the scar. According to Ellwood, “the gestation sac then starts to disrupt the scar and if it develops for too long the wall of the uterus will actually rupture and the scar will break open, there will be a major haemorrhage”.
Furthermore the pregnancy cannot progress. Again says David Ellwood, the pregnancy “can progress for quite a few weeks, in fact the most dangerous types of caesarean scar pregnancies are those that have been undetected and have progressed to quite an advanced gestation.” Because the baby “couldn’t survive to full term” late-term abortion is then required which involves either an infusion of the cancer drug methotraxate that kills placental tissues, so it stops the placenta from growing and developing, or, by surgically cutting the baby out of the uterus. In the former procedure, the lethal drug has to also circulate through the mother’s system.
Another complication that arises with pregnancies following a caesarean birth can result in the placenta penetrating into the uterine wall and even through into the bladder, because it cannot attach to the scar tissue in the uterus. The inevitable outcome for this condition is that baby must be born by Caesarean Section and the uterus removed at the time of surgery, because there is no way to stop bleeding without taking out the uterus altogether.
Side Effects on Baby of Caesarean Birth
If these are the consequences of surgical birth for the mother, what is the impact on the baby? According to the report, research demonstrates that surgically delivered babies show a dramatic increase in:
- Type 1 diabetes
- Asthma
- Allergies
- Breathing problems
The report goes on to say that in many cases, intervention is often unnecessary and that the markers for foetal distress that determine a doctor recommending a caesarean during labour are often commonly over-exaggerated, causing excess caution in a process that is natural. Doctor’s fear of litigation has been cited for this extreme over-caution.
In my book, The Essence of Woman, I describe how Nature has designed stress into the birth process, balanced by the return of the vaginally-born baby to the heart-field of the mother, as she cuddles her newborn. A close, tight birth canal ensures that every inch of the baby’s skin is stimulated, cleverly planned into the birthing process to trigger the initiation of the baby’s functional systems. These are the systems that will enable baby to exist independently of the ‘mother-ship’ and include the digestive, respiratory, circulatory, nervous and elimination systems.
In a caesarean birth, these systems are not stimulated, resulting in an inefficient ‘start-up’ of the baby’s independent systems. This means that there will be functional deficiencies involving the skin, lungs, stomach, liver, bowel, heart and brain of the newborn. The health outcomes include allergies, digestive disharmonies such as childhood and infancy diabetes (alarmingly on the rise) and colic, asthma, psychological and emotional problems such as ADD, ADHD, autism, developmental retardation and behavioural difficulties, including autism.
To understand how these health problems arise when a child is unnaturally born, read my book, The Essence of Woman, where the underlying MindBody connections are fully explained in easy readable language.
As women, we need to seriously consider how far away from our natural feminine intelligence we have strayed, when we willingly agree to have our natural processes managed for us by pharmaceutical companies that drive our mainstream medical systems for profit. In most case, this means white-washing the public into believing in the medicalisation of women’s natural reproductive processes, as with the recommended use of HRT for menopause.
Women Have Lost Confidence in Their Bodies
Many women have lost confidence in their bodies. This happens when we collaborate in the management of our reproductive processes with a medical system using toxic pharmaceutical agents that injure the body and downgrade our natural processes.
Use of the contraceptive pill has become commonplace now, and yet it has serious repercussions for the health of women. The dramatic rise in IVF (one in six couples in Australia are affected by infertility, and one in twenty babies – about 10,000 – are currently born using assisted reproductive technology) is a testimony to the fact that women’s fertility is being negatively impacted.
What’s more, the pill has been shown to reduce libido and to contribute significantly to depression.
But it doesn’t stop there. The cascade affect goes on: the more the IVF cycles, the less likely a woman is to conceive. In other words, IVF further degrades fertility and contributes to multiple births, where neither the mother nor the babies receive the optimum nutrition or energy to deliver optimum health for the newborn at birth.
Moreover, research has demonstrated that the natural gender balance is being gradually eroded with 58% of babies being born male via IVF, compared to 51% born male by natural conception.
A study, by the Key Centre for Women’s Health in Society at the University of Melbourne, found:
- IVF mothers more likely than non-IVF mothers to have a caesarean birth
- Three times more likely to seek help from an early parenting centre and
- Babies more likely to be bottle-fed by three months of age
The conclusion of the study was stated thus: "We think that experiencing infertility and the added stress of using Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) has a cumulative effect, eroding women’s confidence in themselves and in their bodies.”
IVF has a touted success rate of 15%. It is a billion dollar industry that is increasing its profits by the day. Currently, there are no quality control standards in place, nor is there any come-back for couples who pay out tens of thousands of dollars with nothing to show at the bitter end, but heartache and a stressed relationship.
Truly, it is a modern day tragedy that seems to have no end in sight.
Continuing down this path can only result in the dramatic devolution of the human race, in terms of both physical and psychological health and wellbeing of the children being born, in this denatured way. That is unless, as women we stand up and say no, stop and enough!!
It is within our power to find other, more appropriate ways to manage our fertility that does not involve chemical castration, the expunction of natural coital conception and the slicing open of our abdomens to cut our babies from our bodies.
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