Vaginal birth is the method of childbirth that God created when He created man for human reproduction. However, in recent years, many pregnant women and their families have been determined to have a cesarean delivery since the day they became pregnant because of the belief that cesarean delivery is safer, smarter, less painful, and less affected by sex after delivery. This misconception is deeply rooted in people’s minds and affects not only ordinary pregnant women, but also medical professionals, including doctors, nurses and midwives who work in obstetrics and gynecology. So when a doctor advises you to deliver by C-section, it is not really to make more money for you, but he does think that it is safer for you to deliver by C-section at that time, even though sometimes you don’t seem to be in that serious danger.
Driven by this perception, the cesarean rate has been increasing year by year since the 1990s, and especially in China today, the cesarean rate has reached 80-90% in individual hospitals in individual regions. This is a shocking figure that has even alarmed the World Health Organization. The World Health Organization has warned China. China is therefore actively promoting vaginal births and asking hospitals everywhere to reduce the cesarean rate.
The first thing that needs to be changed to lower the cesarean rate is the perception – that cesarean delivery is not as safe and comfortable as one might think. I will tell you today why cesarean delivery is not safe:.
1. Cesarean delivery bleeds more
The smoothest cesarean births have an average of 500ml more blood than even a vaginal birth. Every drop of blood we have is precious. If there is more bleeding, it may go into shock, it may be life-threatening, and it also requires a blood transfusion, which is more harmful and may lead to the input of unclean blood, which can lead to chronic diseases such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and AIDS. These have all happened before and may not be discovered until years after the transfusion. Postpartum hemorrhage can also lead to a condition called Silhan’s syndrome. Due to excessive bleeding, the enlarged pituitary gland during pregnancy becomes necrotic due to insufficient blood supply, which leads to endocrine disorders. Typical manifestations are: prolonged weakness after postpartum hemorrhage, earliest absence of lactation, then secondary amenorrhea, and even if menstruation resumes, it is scanty and secondary infertility. Loss of libido, vaginal dryness, and difficulty in sexual intercourse. Loss of pubic and axillary hair, thinning of hair and eyebrows, atrophy of breasts and genitalia, mental apathy, drowsiness, inactivity, unresponsiveness, chilliness, absence of sweating, dry and rough skin, poor appetite, constipation, low body temperature, slow pulse, reduced blood pressure, pallor, anemia. Most have edema and weight loss, and a few have wasting cachexia. Severe cases may require lifelong drug replacement therapy. Mild symptoms are atypical, with no acute symptoms, and are mistaken for menstrual disease by TCM practitioners. If the first cesarean delivery went well for you and there was no hemorrhage. What about the later?
2.Cesarean section affects another pregnancy
Due to the gradual liberalization of family planning policy, many people will have multiple births, even if you only want to have one baby, but you may accidentally get pregnant again. The risk of getting pregnant again after a cesarean section is greatly increased. It’s like your first baby is living in a new villa, the second baby is a second home in disrepair, if your first baby is a broken window – no, a broken wall, then the second baby is not only a second home, it may be a dangerous home. This dangerous house is likely to collapse before the baby is safely in the world – the uterus ruptures. What’s at stake is your life and your baby’s life. It may not come to such a tragic end, but it is possible that the gestational sac lays on the scar of the cesarean incision. The fertilized egg lays at the endometrium like a seed planted in the soil, forming the placenta and absorbing nutrients from the mother. If unfortunately planted on this scar, it is equivalent to a seed planted in thin soil on a rock with little nutrition, which affects the development of the child. Moreover, this place is the weakest part of the uterus, and if it happens that the lining does not grow well, the fetus may grow in the gap of the rock, forming an incisional scar pregnancy, a ferocious placenta praevia, or placental implantation. Some of these conditions must be dealt with if the fetus cannot be delivered at full term, and some severe postpartum hemorrhage occurs at full term delivery, even if the mother’s uterus and life cannot be saved. These cases are experienced more and more by our obstetricians due to the high rate of cesarean delivery in recent years.
3. Endometriosis is likely to occur after cesarean delivery
The endometrium is equivalent to the wallpaper put up inside the room. It should be right inside the room. It changes in thickness during the menstrual cycle, and it is this layer of wallpaper that comes off during menstruation and a new layer of wallpaper is put on at the end of menstruation. But sometimes this lining leaves its original position and wanders to other organs, and it becomes endometriosis. A cesarean delivery is one of the reasons why endometriosis forms. During a vaginal delivery, this endometrium is shed and drains out of the body in the form of malaria. However, during a cesarean delivery, the baby breaks out of the wall and some of the endometrium enters the abdominal cavity and enters the abdominal wall, and this endometrium is also implanted. However, the endometrium on the surface of the uterus is shed and flows out of the body with menstrual blood, while the endometrial bleeding leaving the uterus has nowhere to flow, accumulating more and more and forming a lake in situ – the endometriosis lesion. The prominent symptom of endometriosis is pain, which occurs every time the menstrual period comes – dysmenorrhea. Many women who have had a cesarean delivery for two or three years find a mass on the incision in the abdominal wall that gradually grows and hurts every time they have their period, and the mass gets bigger and more painful. Having this means you unfortunately have endometriosis at the cesarean incision. Cesarean incisional endometriosis is also becoming more and more common with the increase in cesarean deliveries and is recognized and familiar to obstetricians and gynecologists. With incisional endometriosis, you have to go through another surgery.
4. Post-surgical infection
Bacteria are everywhere in the air and the vagina hosts a large number of bacteria, but God made there are good defense mechanisms and we are easily protected from them. An intact skin and an intact uterus is one of the best protections given to us. But during a cesarean section the doctor cuts the skin, cuts the uterus, and the baby breaks through the wall, leaving our abdominal cavity open to the outside world and the vagina. Although the doctor disinfects your skin over and over again before the surgery, sterilizes her hands, uses strictly sterilized instruments, gives you antibiotics, and operates on you in a laminar flow operating room, which has greatly reduced your chances of infection, there are still some pregnant women with low resistance who unfortunately develop infections or even serious infections. I remember in 2000, when I was working in Beijing, a patient had a wound infection after an out-of-hospital delivery, and after treatment, the wound infection healed, but the fever did not go away and she started to cough. She came back to the clinic and I saw her again. The postpartum wound had healed and the uterus had recovered well. There was no stomach pain. Listening to the lungs, it was as if the water in the kettle had boiled. I considered that she had heart failure and sent her to the cardiology department of our higher hospital. A week later the patient came to our hospital to get her outpatient records and told me the patient had infective endocarditis, I sent her to that hospital in the afternoon and she had emergency heart valve replacement surgery that evening. The lesson shows that postpartum infection can also have serious consequences.
5.Pelvic adhesions after surgery
You may not have experienced any of the above unfortunate events, but a young woman can suffer from other diseases that require open heart surgery in the long years to come. For example, appendicitis, ovarian cysts, intestinal diseases and so on, then you have a cesarean section experience, doctors are very worried about whether the operation will be difficult. Some people are scarred and are prone to peritoneal adhesions and intestinal adhesions after surgery. The anatomy in the abdominal cavity is now very different from what the doctor learned in his textbooks, and he needs to carefully identify and carefully separate these adhesions in order to complete the surgery, or despite his care, complications arise. Illness sometimes cannot be avoided, but the first cesarean delivery may be avoidable.
In summary, cesarean delivery is not as safe as one might think. If I were a mother-to-be I would not ask for a cesarean, and if I were an obstetrician, I would not advise you to have a cesarean without principles.
So what can be done about the pain of vaginal birth?
Many pregnant women know that cesarean delivery is not safe and they do want to have a vaginal delivery, but the pain during labor shatters her confidence instantly and she starts to clamor for a cesarean delivery. The pain of childbirth is indeed too painful, I have experienced it, and millions of women have experienced it in the past, and more than once. Thanks to new technologies, medical advances, and the development of safe drugs, women have the option of labor analgesia. The use of anesthesia analgesia during childbirth has no effect on the delivery process, has no effect on the newborn, and can effectively relieve labor pain.
Does vaginal birth really affect the sensation of sex after delivery?
The female vagina carries both sexual and reproductive functions. In its natural state it is a closed cavity. It accommodates the male sex organ during sex and allows the passage of the fetus during childbirth and is highly malleable. Because the head of the fetus is about 10 cm in diameter, there is some loss of pelvic floor muscle tone for a short time after delivery, but the canal cavity remains closed. After postpartum recovery and pelvic floor muscle exercise, more anal lifting exercises, women’s sexuality can be restored as before. The perception of sex is more important in the psychological rather than the physical.
Are children born by cesarean section more intelligent?
The earliest learning and sensory building process occurs when the fetus passes through a narrow and twisted birth canal under contractions, and cesarean delivery deprives the baby of this learning opportunity, which can lead to a range of behavioral problems after development. Some studies have claimed an association between cesarean delivery and ADHD and autism in children. While these studies are still in their infancy, they at least suggest that children born by cesarean section are no smarter than those born vaginally.
So, moms-to-be, feel free to try a vaginal birth, and you will be watched and comforted by medical staff throughout. You will have an anesthesiologist to help you with the pain, and you will have to take care of your baby and do active recovery exercises after delivery. You will be a beautiful, strong, and beautiful mother.