26/07/2025
The language around childbirth has become so perjorative in Australia. Lifesaving procedures we have spent decades learning to perform are labelled as interventions. Natural birth has somehow replaced vaginal birth as if to imply it is better than its sister, a Caesarean birth. And then there’s birth trauma and obstetric r**e, frankly repugnant terms used to drive a dangerous ideology that is driving up our maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity. I’m not denying the experience of childbirth can be traumatic. I’ve witnessed plenty of what pregnancy and childbirth can look like at its worst. But that, my friends, is the true nature of childbirth and hence why we spend decades training to save lives. So Australia needs a reframe. Women’s and babies’ lives matter. We are privileged to have access to epidurals, Caesareans, hospitals, resuscitation equipment and even the dreaded forceps. Because they save lives. And because outcomes like urinary and faecal continence, sexual function and pelvic organ prolapse are things that a woman living in Australia in 2025 might expect to matter too.
Obstetricians are too often forced to defend ‘interventions’ when they are actually treatments reducing mortality for both mothers and their babies, a leading practitioner says. More at: https://bit.ly/3UubkWJ
