I blame TV for too many Caesareans, says maternity tsar

Title: I blame TV for too many Caesareans, says maternity tsar.

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Gwyneth Lewis, national clinical lead for maternity services, said that, while Caesareans save lives in some cases, there is a need for more “normalisation” of pregnancy.

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The Government’s maternity tsar yesterday blamed TV dramas for the huge increase in the number of Caesarean sections performed in the UK. Gwyneth Lewis, national clinical lead for maternity services, said that, while Caesareans save lives in some cases, there is a need for more “normalisation” of pregnancy. The IoS reported last week that Caesarean sections had risen from 9 per cent
of all deliveries in 1980, to nearly 23 per cent by 2004/05, well above the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendation of 15 per cent. Ms Lewis’s comments come in the wake of several shows depicting Caesarean sections, including ER and Emmerdale. She said: “I blame TV programmes. Every time, you see a pregnancy on television it seems to go wrong and ends up with a Caesarean section. You never see a woman having a normal delivery.” Ms Lewis said: “I would like to see [Caesarean rates] going down, and there is no doubt some of them could have been avoided.” She added that increasing rates of obesity are leading to more problems in childbirth. Following the IoS investigation into Britain’s maternity services, midwives have launched a campaign demanding that the Government boost their numbers by 10,000 over the next two years. Catharine Parker-Littler, founder and midwifery director at midwivesonline.com, said the midwives had the backing of thousands of parents.

But Ms Lewis said discussions on the numbers of midwives needed were already happening. “We agree we do have to increase numbers but we have had a 44 per cent increase in midwives in training in the last six years and we’ve had 2,000 more midwives come though.” The WHO has asked London to host an international conference on maternal health next Tuesday and Wednesday to share lessons learned from UK data such as the reports of the Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health (Cemach), which looks into every case where a pregnant mother has died. Professor Jason Gardosi, of the Perinatal Institute in the West Midlands, said
maternal mortality reports, established 50 years ago, were rightly the envy of the world. But he said his main concern was how midwifery caseloads contributed to the deaths of babies, including up to 4,000 stillbirths per year in the UK. “Overworked staff are just not able to give the care they would like to give,” he said. “With the recent budget cuts, the posts of community midwives, the bedrock of good maternity care, have been particularly vulnerable. Student midwives have to set up websites to petition for more jobs because there are often none to go to at the end of their training.” Ms Lewis, who also edits the Cemach reports, said: “You have to bear in mind that we have a population of women which are now much more risky,” she said, blaming increasing obesity rates and the rising number of older mothers.

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Additional reporting by Jonathan Owen http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2347524.ece

Disclaimer:

Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent those of The Federation of Antenatal Educators (FEDANT) unless specifically stated.