Always late with the news
Jun. 23rd, 2009 03:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
squeefulfishSo, the Canadian Obs/Gynae society has started to think that, ya know, maybe breech babies don't have to all be planned c-sections. That maybe we could start building up skills of vaginal breech birth again. That the Term Breech Trial (that made me wince when I first read it last year) might not have been the most sound piece of research ever.
In the space of 18 years, section rates for breech babies has rocketed thanks in part to the TBT. Obstetricians have long lost the skills of vaginal breech birth, most are leaving their training never having seen one at all, same with midwives. I've never seen a breech birth that wasn't a section, have become far too used to hearing at report on postnatal "elective section for breech."
I've never been afraid of vaginal breech, but then I was one of those awkward ones, determined to cause as much hassle as possible by entering the world arse first. I've read enough descriptions of breech births (and know the mechanisms of labour enough) to know that it's gotta be dammed scary to see for the first time. But then, so was the first cephalic birth I saw!
Thinking is good, learning is good, not blindly accepting a single trial as gospel, now that's the sort of thinking we need to encourage. And this makes me very very happy indeed.
In the space of 18 years, section rates for breech babies has rocketed thanks in part to the TBT. Obstetricians have long lost the skills of vaginal breech birth, most are leaving their training never having seen one at all, same with midwives. I've never seen a breech birth that wasn't a section, have become far too used to hearing at report on postnatal "elective section for breech."
I've never been afraid of vaginal breech, but then I was one of those awkward ones, determined to cause as much hassle as possible by entering the world arse first. I've read enough descriptions of breech births (and know the mechanisms of labour enough) to know that it's gotta be dammed scary to see for the first time. But then, so was the first cephalic birth I saw!
Thinking is good, learning is good, not blindly accepting a single trial as gospel, now that's the sort of thinking we need to encourage. And this makes me very very happy indeed.
