Change platform for caesarean birth

‘You're going to be a pioneer, aren't you?’ said my vaginal birth after caesarean (VBAC) midwife, Jo, at a clinic appointment when I was 36 weeks pregnant with my second baby.

She was talking about the ‘back-up’ caesarean birth plan that I had written based on a paper entitled ‘The natural caesarean: a woman-centred technique’ (Smith et al, 2008), where the birth is slow, actively involves the parents, allows immediate extended skin-to-skin in theatre and delays the clamping of the cord.

Jo cautioned me that she didn't know how open to this approach her colleagues would be—and it turned out she was right. At both my clinic appointment with a registrar and a subsequent appointment with a Supervisor of Midwives and the Clinical Lead for Obstetrics, I was told: ‘We don't do “natural caesareans” in this Trust.’ They said they could not arrange this as it takes around a year to agree new protocols that require multidisciplinary input.