Cash-strapped hospitals are banning hundreds of women from having a caesarean birth, it emerged today.
A number of NHS trusts have said they will only give the go-ahead for a c-section if the woman’s health would be put at risk by a natural birth.
They have launched the crackdown on women who are ‘too posh to push’ – saying it wastes millions of pounds of NHS money every year.
Most hospitals already discourage women from having c-sections by outlining the potential risks to both mother and baby. But now some trusts are going further by ruling them out on financial rather than medical grounds – meaning it will be even harder for women to get a caesarean on the Health Service.
Some hospitals are banning caesarean sections which are popular with stars like Angelina Jolie, seen pictured in 2008 with partner Brad Pitt while pregnant with twins Knox and Vivienne
One quarter of all births in the UK are now by caesarean section, up from just 9 per cent in 1980, despite a campaign by the World Health Organisation which believes there is no justification for any country having a rate exceeding 15 per cent.
A planned caesarean costs around £2,600 – much more than the £1,200 cost of a natural birth without complications; taking money from strained NHS budgets away from other priorities such as heart disease and cancer.
Economists estimate that a drop of 1 per cent in the proportion of women having the surgery would save the NHS some £5.6million a year.
Dr Michael Dixon, chairman of the NHS Alliance, which represents GPs who run health service budgets, said: ‘We are going to need to balance all sorts of things in future, from cancer to heart disease. When it comes to treatments we may need to spend less on, that [caesareans] may be one.’
The restrictions have been put in place by primary care trusts in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Herefordshire, Bristol, South Staffordshire, County Durham, Dorset, Derbyshire, and Bournemouth and Poole.
The bans only affect planned caesareans, not c-sections which are carried out for emergency reasons. And if a natural birth would pose a health risk for mother or baby, a c-section would be allowed.
Health experts have long argued that women should go for a natural birth because the risks are lower. A birth by c-section increases a baby’s chance of breathing difficulties, and mothers may find it harder to bond with a child while recovering from operations.
Opting for a C-section: Victoria Beckham, while pregnant with her first daughter, Harper Seven and Britney Spears in 2005, pregnant with son Sean Preston
These risks are usually outlined to mothers-to-be by midwives, meaning a woman has to be very determined to get a caesarean on the NHS. But the financial restrictions being put in place by a number of trusts will make it much harder to get one.
Some mothers’ groups say that patient choice is more important than notions of objective risk.
They argue that woman opt for planned caesareans to avoid the trauma of an emergency procedure and to reduce the risk of post-natal conditions such as incontinence.
Mothers’ rights campaigner Leigh East, 40, from Ilkley in West Yorkshire, had both her daughters by planned caesarean.
She said: ‘This is outrageous because one in four women will have a caesarean whether they want one or not. Women who make a positive choice to have a caesarean and remove the risk of an emergency caesarean stand a far better chance of a positive recovery than women who go into childbirth blindly.
‘To take that choice away, when it has just been shown that it is a valid option, shows it is being done purely on the basis of costs.’
Later this year, the NHS rationing body NICE is expected to bring out a report saying women should be able to choose their method of birth.
Maureen Treadwell, of the British Trauma Association, said: ‘There are a small group of women who appraise the risks of natural birth versus caesarean and consider caesarean is better. They are making a well-informed decision, taking account of the priorities that are most important to them.’
Dr Paul Armstrong, a consultant obstetrician at London’s Portland hospital, said: ‘Just as a woman has a right to choose home birth or other non-interventionist techniques, so should she have the right to choose a caesarean.
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