According to new NHS guidelines, pregnant women those are very worried about labour will be able to have caesarean even if there is no medical reason. At present pregnant women are offered a premeditated caesarean only in certain circumstances such as high blood pressure, diabetes, foetus in wrong position and if women are expecting twins or triplets.
However, under current guidelines from the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), women suffering any sort of mental health issues including fear or anxiety will also be eligible for caesarean birth. Several women are so afraid of natural birth that they are having their pregnancies terminated.
The fear of childbirth is known as tokophobia and it is likely to affect one in ten expectant mothers. In some cases tokophobia is bring on by earlier traumatic sufferings, while in others it is merely an unreasonable fear with no evident cause.
According to Malcolm Griffiths, senior consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist from Luton and Dunstable Hospital, it was not believed to be uncommon for women to ask for terminations subsequent to earlier bad experiences while giving birth. He recently seen one case in which women undergoing two very upsetting labours and had asked to be referred for an abortion.
The latest statistics show that twenty-five percent of women give birth by caesarean section, which is up from twelve percent in nineties. NICE guideline was not about offering free caesareans for all. But, for a very small number of women, their anxiety about childbirth will lead them to ask for a c-section, explained NICE’s deputy chief executive Dr Gillian Leng.
Such women would first be offered counselling. If their fears were still not alleviated then they would be offered a planned caesarean. The guidelines only refer to planned or elective caesarean sections, added Dr Leng.