Cesarean Complications

Many of us believe that a c-section is just another way to have a baby. And indeed, almost 1 in 3 women in the US will undergo the procedure. So cesarean complications..come on! This is life saving surgery!

Yes, it is!

When medically necessary to save mother or baby, it IS life saving surgery. However, according to the World Health Organization that should be in less than 10% of cases - 15% tops.

In the US?

The rate is over 30% and climbing and if you are unfortunate enough to live in New Jersey it is well over 40%! Of all these c-sections, over half are elective cesarean sections - unnecessary.

A cesarean section - also called c-section or cesarean - is major abdominal surgery... not a walk in the park. Yet c-sections are at the height of their popularity for many mothers who simply "choose" a c-section - elective cesarean section - as another "birthing method."

Authors like Vicki Iovine in her book The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy encourages a surgical delivery with such comments as:

We are sorry to say but whether you have a c-section, give birth vaginally or never have a baby , at the age of 50 you won't have the tone of a teenager any more than you'll have the shape and physique of a teenager unless you work very hard at it (diet and exercise) or have cosmetic surgery. As you have already noticed - we are sure - no one escapes the ravages of getting older.

Moreover in late September 2008, researchers in the United States dropped a bombshell onto the cozy little world of obstetrics.

Cesarean Complications: Is Your Baby's Life at Risk?

Indeed, after analyzing the records of nearly six million births, researchers advised that mothers should think twice before choosing a cesarean section over a natural birth.

Why you may ask since it seems almost everyone has one?

Well simply because such a surgical delivery could be putting the life of your newborn baby at risk.

What the stark American statistics revealed was that cesarean babies are almost three times more likely to die within their first month of life than naturally delivered babies (1)

Cesarean Complications: To the Mother

The risks to the mother are the same as any potential problems associated with any major abdominal surgery:

Anesthesia accidents

Damage to blood vessels

Injury to the bladder, uterus or other organs

A much higher risk of infection than natural birth (2)

Death

Indeed women who have a cesarean section - minimally - double their chances of dying or suffering a serious illness.

They are also five times more likely to suffer infection afterwards compared with women who have a natural birth (10).

Other, longer-term risks include:

Possible decreased fertility

Ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage (3)

Cesarean Complications: To the Baby

It is these newly discovered risks to your newborn child that has so shocked obstetricians.

The report published in a peer-reviewed journal comprised a four year survey of all cesarean operations performed in the US from 1998 to 2001.

The researchers, led by Dr Marian MacDorman of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - CDC - studied the records of nearly 5.8 million live births and almost 12,000 subsequent infant deaths, and found a nearly three-fold increase in the death rates of elective cesarean section babies within four weeks of the birth.

While there were only 62 deaths per 100,000 natural births, a staggering 177 babies died within a few weeks after a cesarean section (4).

By the way, doctors have been aware of these higher risks and cesarean section complication for years, but have tended to explain it away because after all c-sections are usually an "emergency procedure."

However, MacDorman's study has removed this factor by only analyzing the records of women who had no complications at all with either kind of delivery. This means that the difference in the babies' death rates could only have been due to the delivery method itself.

In short with a slew of cesarean complications, they can be lethal to your baby...but why?

The risk to you - the mother - can readily be explained by the fact that a cesarean section is major abdominal surgery. However what about your baby?

There is evidence that during a c-section, your baby may sustain "brachial plexus injury, damage to soft tissues, fractures, lacerations, and entrapment of fetal head followed by intracranial hemorrhage" (5). Those cesarean complications are however relatively rare, so it is very unlikely to be the whole answer.

Another way to explain the new MacDorman data is to ask what is so right about a natural birth?

C-section babies are known to have impaired respiration compared with non-section babies (6).

This may improve lung function as well by pushing fluid from the lungs and preparing your baby for immediate air-breathing.

Cesarean Complications: Asthma

Support for these theories has come from studies that have found a link between c-sections and later respiratory disorders, in particular, asthma.

A recent German survey discovered that c-section born babies have higher rates of asthma - and, incidentally, more food allergies - up to age two than naturally born babies (7). This pattern continues into adulthood.

Astonishingly, even as much as a whole generation later, the long-term effects of cesarean sections still show up.

Cesarean Complications: Neurological Development

Some claim that the compression of the baby's body down the birth canal helps kick-start the natural maturation of infant reflexes, allowing proper neural development to take place. On the other hand, compression of the skull may also cause problems such as colic and irritability - the latter can be taken care of by visiting a chiropractor or Osteopath.

Cesarean Complications: Giving Birth to Junkies

In wealthy countries, a majority of children are born with the use of pain relieving drugs. In wealthy countries drug addiction is increasing. Some say there is a correlation.

Thousands of researchers are trying to confirm - or invalidate - the conclusions of the studies by B. Jacobson and his team - in Sweden - about the relationship between opiate or amphetamine addiction in adult offspring of mothers who were given pain medication during their births. (11)

Doctor Jacobson's team studied the birth records of 200 opiate addicts born in Stockholm between 1945 and 1966. The control group consisted only of siblings of drug addicts, also born in Stockholm during the same period to reduce possible bias caused by such factors as socio economic levels.

The main finding is that in the study group a higher proportion of mothers received opiates - morphine or pethidine - or barbiturates, or both, during labor and delivery. If the drugs have been administered more than 10 hours before delivery there is no significant difference between the two groups.

The risks are increased when the drugs have been administered several times.

This report was preceded by a study by the same group, this time focusing on amphetamine addiction (12).

The main conclusion of this study is that nitrous oxide administration during delivery is an essential risk factor for eventual amphetamine addiction in the offspring and that the risks of addiction are proportional to the duration of nitrous oxide exposure. Duration of nitrous oxide analgesia was tested in competition with 12 potential confounding factors, such as birth weight, duration of labor, surgical intervention and administration of other drugs, such as opiates. When nitrous oxide has been given for four and a half hours or more, the risk that the infant will become addicted is 5.6 times higher than if the gas has been given less than 15 minutes.

The work of Jacobson gives insight into the probably long term effects of drugs which were commonly used in Sweden between 1945 and 1966.

This leads one to wonder about the long term effects of the extensive use of drugs employed today.

For obvious reasons, there is still a lack of scientific studies regarding the possible long term effects of new procedures such as epidural anesthesia. The effects of epidurals on the behavior of the baby over the first month following birth have been traced by using the "neonatal behavioural assessment scale" of American researcher T B Brazelton.

The results?

A significant dose effect was found (13). Incidentally, if ewes - as in sheep - are given epidurals in early labor, they failed to show interest in their lambs (14). This is very significant!

The reports about the probable long term effects of drugs used in the period around birth are not surprising. Brain receptors reorganize themselves during precise stages of development, and in particular in the perinatal period and at puberty. This is probably the case of oxytocin receptors, opiate receptors, benzodiazepine gaba receptors, insulin receptors, etc.

In the scientific context of the 1990s, it is increasingly easy to understand that there are no innocent drugs. Midwives and doctors who use nitrous oxide should know that this gas influences neurotransmission directly at opioid receptors (15).

Cesarean Complications: What Some Doctors Have to Say

Some prominent - and world renowned - doctors like Dr Michel Odent are convinced that a natural labor has many more tangible benefits.

Breastfeeding, for example, is often easier after a natural birth, says Odent, possibly because of the better psychological bonding between mother and child after a natural delivery.

There may be two main reasons for this:

First, a c-section is a much more medicalized procedure than a natural birth and, as such, it distances the mother from her newborn.

Second, the very act of giving birth through the vagina stimulates the production of oxytocin - called "the love hormone." This hormone is known to play a primary role throughout the whole birthing process, as it floods the mother's brain with powerful signals "telling her" to care for her infant (9).

There are many more advantages to a natural birth...in this case - again - nature - or God - know best.

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