Essay on Natural Birth vs C-section

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Once the delivery option sought after all other options have proved untenable, C-section deliveries are now the rage. With each passing decades the balance that natural birth deliveries are being tipped. C-section as a delivery option serves to bridge and improve on the shortfalls of natural delivery but it posses a host of threats to both the mother and child. As a novel medically congruent delivery option, current developments in scientific technologies and medical interventions will continue to popularize C-sections at the expense of a more fulfilling and comparatively safe natural delivery option.

The superiority and safety of natural delivery on both the mother and the child is self evident and that explains the reasons why C-sections were initially preserved as a medical interventions only to be used when serious complications threatened the safety of safe deliveries.

This paper is a concise exposition on the differences between natural birth and C-section birth with respect to the safety, dangers and the health benefits that each delivery option offers to the mother and the child.

Natural Birth

The media and the public at large has been instrumental in fueling the belief that child birth is an intolerably agonizing phenomena. While such utterances are barely informed, these depictions of the pain of child birth has forced some women to seek surgically assisted child birth for fear of undergoing an experience that is depicted as unpleasant and painful. However, despite these portrayals some women have disregarded some depictions and gave birth naturally. Such women believe labor is hard work even though sometimes accompanied by pain but it is only in very rare circumstances that women undergo nonstop excruciating pain(Cummings 215). Moreover, these women see no need of trading their birthing experience for anything else even if such interventions are ideally painless.

Basically, natural childbirth is a natural delivery that is non medicated. As a way of delivery women usually make that decision as they prepare for the delivery process. Natural child birth can be drug assisted or not drug assisted depending on the obstetrician. Drugs administered to women during labor interfere with the process causing the mother to loose any kind of sensation. Because the process of labor is slowed, additional drugs will have to be administered to increase contractions. Such induced contractions are evidently more severe and painful when compared with the natural contraction process. While the perception of child birth differs across cultures, it is understood that child birth is a natural and normal phenomenon that should be allowed to proceed normally unless it is prescribed to be medically unfit for either the life of the mother or the infant.

A majority of obstetricians administer drugs to decrease the level of pain even though it is medically understood that such drug interventions increase the chances of vacuum extraction, forceps delivery or C- section delivery. All these factors that drug interventions predispose mothers to also predispose the mother to an increased incidence of maternal and infant infections or injury. The beauty of unmedicated labor is that there are many potential benefits to the mother and newborn. Research evidence attest to the fact that such drugs make the newly born to be drowsy(Cummings 216). Drowsiness is a detriment to the efficient onset of nursing.  It is therefore no wonder that most companies that manufacture the epidural drug interventions also manufacture baby formula; the only alternative should the infant poorly commence onset nursing. Baby formula has been associated with a wide range of baby sicknesses that can only be managed by additional drugs. The resultant effect is a sickly baby. On the other hand, mothers who undergo unmedicated labor and consequently child birth are more likely to breast feed their new born. Apart the fact that breast feeding is the best baby food ever, it has immune boosting effects that ensure that baby sicknesses are kept at bay.

In the United States alone, 80 to 90% of C-sections are utterly medically unnecessary. Mothers resort to them based on the results they experienced in previous interventions or simply because doctors feel that it is more convenient or simply because only C- sections is the only intervention that is congruent to the mothers work schedules,visits by friends, childbirth leaves or for aesthetic purposes. While all these reasons are not medically supported by any facts, many women continue to predispose themselves to dangers posed by C-section delivery. Increased health risks both for the mother and the new born cannot be ignored. When mothers with precancerous cervical lesions undergo surgical birth, there chances of death are seriously increased when compared to giving birth vaginally. Vaginal birth has been demonstrated to help in the clearing of mucus associated with the obstruction of new born breathing.

The persistence of C-section child birth is a product to what obstetricians consider a scientific, clinical method  and the natural child birth process does not add any form of enthusiasm to what they have learned during their medical training and practice(Cummings 217). While the medical effects of the C-section births remain shrouded in secrecy due to the power of doctors over policies that pertain to medical interventions, the culture of C-section births continue to be modeled even though such a culture  constitutes an unjustified practice. Such an insistence can be explained by traditionalism that allowed the perpetration of some practices even if these practices are unjustified. Resistance to change can be another factor promoting what is considered unnecessary.

On a primal; level, C-section is a an unnecessary violation of a womans body. Unless the reason foe being cut up is honest, such mothers usually feel violated and betrayed after the operation. As a major abdominal surgical operation, C-section creates a huge wound that may increase chances of secondary infections apart from being a potential risk to the safety and integrity of other organs. Surgical operations have advanced to a stage where such risks seem to be preventable through basic surgical procedures, however, the possibility of blood clots is real hence hysterectomy. Women usually resort to cesarean section for fear of labor pains. What they do not understand is that in C-section the pain is even more severe and continues even into the first weeks or even months for some women after childbirth.

Research has established that women who undergo c-section are more likely to develop infertility problems, placenta previa, ectopic pregnancy, placental abruption and placenta accreta. Future pregnancies my be subject to preterm birth. When the risks of child birth are weighed it becomes indisputable that it is more safer the natural way than C-sections. However, C-section delivery also has certain benefits. Its is these benefits that have partially been behind the increasing acceptance of this type of child birth by a growing number of mothers.

C-section Deliveries

A cesarean birth is a form of delivery where a surgical incision is made in the abdomen and the uterus(Osborn 31). C-section is normally medically recommended when the process of natural childbirth is expected to pose a threat to the health and safety of either the baby or the mother or both. It is usually done to save the baby who might be in fetal distress or in cases where the baby is exceptionally large. In cases where the baby is premature, C-Section is recommended to save its from the trauma associated with child birth. This implies that a C-section should only be performed as a medical emergency. However, in cases where a mother had earlier on undergone a cesarean delivery it may be beneficial for them to have a second baby through the C-section(Greene et al 71).

About 1% chance of oxygen deprivation during labor and delivery has been behind accounts of fetal distress cases. Elective C-section delivery eliminates the chance that the baby might be killed from oxygen deprivation. Moreover, predisposing factors to Erb’s Palsy and  shoulder dystocia are virtually eliminated. Since surgical operations are ideally sterile allegations of bacterial or viral contaminations are unfounded. In elective C-section the rates of deep vein thrombosis and post partum hemorrhage are the same as in natural delivery(Poliakin 317).

Pain is an anxiety provoking response and women routinely seek the benefits of C-section to escape such painful moments. Moreover, women who are haunted with being handicapped when vaginal delivery gone awry are welcome to deliver through a C-section as there are no perineal or vaginal tear or laceration(Rubin 116; Poliakin 317). The fear of death during natural childbirth is further fueling C-section popularity. With proper planning and care, C-section deliveries can have the same beneficial effects as in natural delivery. What drives such a decision as surgically assisted childbirth should be fully understood and any intervention carried out should take into account both the benefits of any form of delivery to the child or the mother.