London - As if pregnant women weren’t already bombarded with the dos and don’ts of giving birth, mothers-to-be could soon be given extra health warnings – about the risks of a natural delivery.
Doctors are considering issuing advice on the pros and cons of giving birth naturally, in the same way as they do for caesarean sections and other operations.
The move, by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, follows a Supreme Court case in which a woman won £5.2 million after her son Sam was severely brain-damaged during childbirth.
Nadine Montgomery’s labour was expected to be more complicated than usual and she said that if she had been advised of the risks, she would have chosen a C-section. Her doctors said that pointing women towards C-sections was not in the ‘maternal interest’.
But the court ruled that Mrs Montgomery, of Lanarkshire in Scotland, should have been informed and called for an end to such ‘medical paternalism’.
The ruling is expected to apply to all births and the College is considering how best to provide the information.
College president, Dr David Richmond, said: ‘It’s terribly sensitive.’ Options range from producing a leaflet to asking women to sign consent forms, although they are unlikely to be mandatory.
Most of the 700,000 babies born in England and Wales each year are delivered naturally. However, C-sections are becoming more common and account for half of all births in some private hospitals.
Currently, women considering C-sections are warned of infections, blood loss and other potential problems.
But they are not told of the risks associated with natural births, including tearing and incontinence. Some nine in ten women will suffer a tear or need a surgical incision during labour.
And one Swedish study found that 20 years after giving birth, 40 per cent of women who delivered naturally had a form of urinary incontinence, compared with 29 per cent who had had a C-section.
Dr Bryan Beattie, an obstetrician at the University Hospital of Wales, told New Scientist magazine: ‘They have got leaflets about C-sections, yet most people opt for a vaginal birth and there are no risk leaflets for them.’
Dr Beattie said that ultimately it is up to the woman to decide which risks to take. He said: ‘You might say to me, “I could cope with a wound infection if I had a C-section but I could not cope with faecal incontinence from a bad vaginal delivery”.
‘You should be allowed to make that choice and you can’t if you don’t have the information.’
Daily Mail