When advised by the Registrar at my first antenatal appointment that I would not be supported in any way, shape or form to attempt a Vaginal Birth After Multiple Caesareans (VBAMC) I was furious, no correct that I was unbelievably completely and utterly livid.
I knew already from private research that the risks involved were not that much greater for a VBAMC than a Vaginal Birth After Caesarean (VBAC) however was unable to provide those statistics at the time and thus the Registrar condescendingly advised me that the risks were much greater than I realised. The dreaded ‘dead baby’ line was used to try to scare me into abandoning all hope of the natural birth I desired and at that stage I gave up speaking to the Registrar as I realised that she would not take me seriously.
Little did this Registrar know what she has now set in motion. I have spent a number of years at university, learning how to research, evaluate and compile information on medical topics and present them in a scientific and methodical format. Immediately upon returning to my computer, set up to look at the most recently published articles (and some not so recent) to collate the latest statistics surrounding VBAMC’s and Elective Repeat Caesarean Deliveries (ERCD).
I found overwhelming evidence that demonstrates that the medical community is concerned with the increasing Caesarean rates and the risks associated with ERCD such as hysterectomy, transfusion, bowl obstructions and risk to further pregnancies. There is also more recent research that shows that the risk of Uterine Rupture (UR), which was thought to triple after the first Caesarean delivery, in fact only increased very slightly compared to the risks mentioned previously for a RCD which increased almost exponentially with each ERCD.
For women who attempt a VBAC - usually the doctors nod and smile and then make the pregnant womans life hell by implementing a range of 'precautions' that make a natural labour virtually impossible. The range of precautions include: putting in a drip, continuous fetal monitoring, timing labour, usually 1cm per hour, and restrictions preventing the woman using showers or baths to ease the labour. Essentially she is hooked up to a number of machines, trapped in the bed on her back and surprise surprise... this cascade of interventions usually lead to an emergency c-section as the woman is unable to labour as her nature intended. They call this a 'trial of labour' or 'trial of scar'. What a horrid label for a horrible experience. (trust me I have experienced it)
I looked up VBAC on the World Health Organisations website and didn't find anything at all about it. After consulting with a number of medically trained people, I found out that the WHO doesn't have guidelines for VBACs as they don't consider them any different to a normal birth.... mmm interesting....
Another point I found out is that there is a restriction of trial of labour to women who are attempting a VBAC only and not VBAMC. This seems to be an outdated and uninformed policy of the Lyell McEwin Health Service, Health SA, and Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetrics and Gynaecologists. The refusal to support women who wish to allow their body the option to deliver their baby naturally, in the absence of extreme circumstances such as placenta previa or a classical vertical incision, is in fact a direct infringement on their right as a woman.
I will update shortly about my next antenatal appointment with the head of the department. I had called the hospital and advised them that if I ever see that registrar again, I was going to make a complaint about her... Yes it was a female doctor telling me that I had no rights when it came to how I chose to birth my baby.
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