Making a C-Section a more, “Natural” experience

April 4, 2009 by Baby Chums
Filed under: Baby Health, News, Pregnancy

A revolutionary new technique from Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in London attempts to turn C-Sections into an experience closer to vaginal birth the Times Online reports.

The idea was conceived by Professor Nicholas Fisk, in response to the rising numbers of Caesareans in the UK. 24 per cent of all births are now Caesarean deliveries. Over half are emergency C-sections rather than planned, and maternal age is a factor; according to the National Sentinel Caesarean Section Audit, mothers under the age of 20 have a C-section rate of just 13 per cent, compared with 33 per cent for mothers aged between 40 and 50.

A Caesarean is undoubtedly a major surgery. It is also a moment of great joy parents and this is what Professor Fisk, and two colleagues - Dr Felicity Plaat, consultant anaesthetist, and Jenny Smith, a senior midwife and author wish to emphasise.

Fisk says, “It struck me that all the effort was going into changing normal childbirth but that Caesarean section was still steeped in old surgical rituals,”

“In some cases I was horrified; the baby would be dragged out like a tumour and passed to several medical staff before the mother. It was ripe for reform.”

His team focused on three areas. First, parental involvement: dropping the drape that “divorced” the mother from her abdomen, to allow her to see her baby’s head emerge.

The second point was physiological: Fisk showed that when a Caesarean is performed slowly the baby is able to “autoresuscitate” - start breathing unaided - while still attached to the placenta, as in normal birth. The baby is “half-delivered” and a combination of the naturally contracting uterus and the baby’s vigorous wriggles allow the lungs to expel fluid in a similar way to a vaginal birth. This reduces the risk of the baby needing help to breathe; a common occurrence after a Caesarean.

Finally, Fisk wanted to see newborns handed immediately to their mother for skin-to-skin bonding. “There are now official standards for skin-to-skin bonding in childbirth, but these are almost never met with Caesareans,” he says. One obstruction is that the monitoring equipment needed for patients in surgery is routinely attached to the mother’s chest. “In a natural Caesarean we attach the ECG wires to the back of the chest so that the baby can be placed on the mother after birth,” Plaat says. The anaesthetic dose is lowered so that there is no “heaviness in the arms” to prevent holding the baby, and a clip that measures oxygen in the blood is attached to the toe.

Read More from the Times Online at http://timesonline.typepad.com/alphamummy/