I was sent a link to a cesarean art site. I think it is very powerful.
While I was looking through her art, I was getting really upset. Last night I taught class 3 in my current series. One of the topics we discuss oh so slightly is cesarean. I was talking about how high the cesarean rate is nationally and how the VBAC rate is plummeting. Women who have already had successful VBAcs are being denied future VBACs. Doctors are telling people they do VBACs, but the reality is that they make it very difficult and pull out the dead baby card as often as possible. Many OB/GYNs cause women to make fear-based decisions rather than evidence-based decisions. It's irresponsible on their part. They are simply covering their own asses.
I was really getting upset, though, because my students (with one exception) are totally blissfully naive about birth. They don't know that since the cesarean rate is 29.1%, possibly two of them will have a cesarean birth. They believe their drs when they say they do VBAC or that they prefer to not do cesareans. BULLSHIT is all I have to say about that one. Of course doctors prefer cesareans. They feel more in conrol over how birth is occuring: time, place, recovery. It's all in the hands of their schedule. They don't understand how completely devastated some women are by cesarean birth. On a list that I read, one woman was just talking about how she could smell her own flesh burning during the surgery. They use cauterizing scalpels to make the incision to reduce blood loss, but moms are awake during most cesarean surgeries. they do feel pressure, hear conversations around them and can smell the smells that come with cesarean birth. All ofthese things (and more) impact her feelings about the birth of her child(ren). Birth becomes something that someone does to her rather than something she does for herself and for her baby. Many women feel victimized, lied to, deceived and violated after their cesareans.
Here is one of the pictures. Take the time to go through them all; they really do tell this one woman's story,and sadly, many women have a very similar story to tell.
