19/04/2026
April is Ceasarean awareness month. And I feel many (often conflicting) things about it. I’m grateful that many people are aware of their choices - and for some people, choosing to have a calm ceasarean will be absolutely the right, most positive way to birth their baby.
For many of us (and I would include myself in this with at least one of my ceasarean births) a caesarean didn’t so much feel like a choice, as a - this is your only viable option left…and so we quickly recalibrated and approached it with as much congruence and peace as we could. Batting away what our hopes might have been in order to adapt to what our babies, or circumstances might have asked of us, adjusting our needs to meet theirs.
The big risks of caesareans are, I think pretty well known and accepted. (And they remain relatively small).
What I remember feeling most angry about (and I still do). Was the way the seemingly small, insignificant things were glossed over. Being told in theatre with my first ‘don’t worry, you can do it all in a pool next time!’ When I now know the hoops you are expected to jump through as a VBAC.
Not being told that I would forever after be deemed high risk and consultant led.
No-one telling me about the increased scarring and how that might impact on future pregnancies (and/or coil placements!)
The truth is we have a staggeringly high ceasarean rate in this country, and it is NOT always necessary.
We also do not have a consistent, reliable, evidence based Maternity service that fully supports these parents to VBAC with subsequent babies (if that is their choice).
And then, downstream, we have services who do not know how to support women, or women who are given conflicting information about their choices..
So yes, Caesarean awareness is a tricky one - because it’s so much more than one operation. It’s complex emotions with potentially complex physical ramifications, and I think the fact it’s done so routinely now belies both how hard those of us who have had them can find it, and how blasé some medical professionals can be regarding both the operation itself and the ongoing after effects.
