Pregnant women have unrealistic expectations about their chances of having an uncomplicated birth and may feel cheated and depressed when they have obstetric interventions, a Victorian study has found. A survey of almost 200 women with a first pregnancy at a Melbourne hospital found that they believed they had a 56% chance of having an uncomplicated birth without the need for induction, forceps, suction cup or caesarean. However, Victorian data show that a woman’s actual chance of a medically uncomplicated birth is only 21%.

Does this reflect our medical systems high intervention rate? In my experience when women birth, suggestions for “moving things along” come far too quickly. Is it to free up hospital beds or keep within “time frames”? Either way, the fact that 80% of women have a birth that involves induction, forceps, suction cup or caesarean is unacceptable to me. What happened to the trust and belief that a woman can birth naturally? Of course there are circumstances that require intervention but I don’t believe that it needs to be as high as 80%!

Likewise, women believed they had a 31% chance of having a delivery without the need for sutures, but the actual chance was only 8%! Attending antenatal classes did not give women a more realistic view of childbirth interventions, the study found.

The findings published in the Australia and NZ Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in January 2012 showed that medical staff also had overoptimistic expectations of a natural birth, with obstetricians predicting a 41% chance of uncomplicated delivery and medical students rating the chances as 45%.

This study is groundbreaking as it highlights where we need to focus our work –supporting a mother to trust her body to bright naturally and doing everything possible to allow that to happen. Whether that means doing a HypnoBirthing course to gain skills, hiring a doula for support or searching out the best doctor/midwife you can, it is imperative that women start this process well before the birth itself.

Reference

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1479-828X.2011.01396.x/abstract