Definitely worth a read: Discussing elective cesarean

This interview with my co-author, Dr. Magnus Murphy, appears in the University of Calgary's 'Medicine' publication (Summer 2012 Dean's Edition). In it, he discusses the risks of pelvic floor injury that can occur during a vaginal birth, and why he feels that women should be given the choice of a planned cesarean if this is their preference.

Wait a few days for cesarean babies' hearing tests

The authors of Birth by Cesarean Delivery and Failure on First Otoacoustic Emissions Hearing Test (Tatiana Smolkin et al) evaluated 1,653 babies born at 35 weeks' or more gestation, and found that those born via c-section (CD) "had significantly higher failure rates" when their hearing was first tested.  They "speculate that CD is accompanied by retained fluid in middle ear which may impair neonatal hearing", and recommend that the timing of first otoacoustic emissions "should preferably be postponed beyond 48 hours of age to improve OAE passage and minimize maternal anxiety and costs."

Criticism of obesity link study published in BMJ

Two weeks following submission, my letter in response to the obesity study was published, June 6, in the BMJ Archives of Disease in Childhood. Titled, "Findings do not inform maternal request caesarean risk", it reads:

As far as I can ascertain (having not yet accessed the full text), this study did not specifically examine maternal request caesareans, and in fact found that "after all factors were taken into account there was a stronger link with emergency caesarean than with pre-planned ones, although the numbers were small for this calculation."(1)

It is very concerning therefore that