"It's about knowledge and empowerment"
She describes how her vaginal delivery has left her "with permanent disabilities, an inability to return to the workforce (at 30 years old) and... facing many high risk surgeries as [she tries to] cope with my disabilities."
She is very honest, and says that she really isn't sure what decision she would have made if her doctor had done a risk assessment and said that she was high risk for prolapse and other birth complications, but now, given what she's lived through over the past eight years, she is sure: "if I could go back in time with the knowledge I have now, I would have absolutely gone with an elective C-section. In my case, that procedure would have been the more sound and safe birth option... A planned C-section could have prevented most, if not all, of my current disability. And what I am facing is surprisingly common. "
Piper doesn't advocate caesareans as the best choice for all women; not at all. But she does have serious concerns about the information women are given about different birth plans:
"Where I have issue is when women are not being assessed for risk factors and not being informed of all risks factors, for all the options. Once assessed women should be educated and empowered to make an informed and knowledgeable choice based on what they want for their own body...
"Each woman is different, living a different lifestyle, with different desires and needs. For some women a large family is highly desirable, for others doing everything possible to preserve their pelvic floor due to work or athletics is desirable.
"What bothers me most about these arguments is that elective surgeries are done all the time. I can get my boobs inflated, my nose streamlined, my fat sucked out, but if I want a C-section to help mitigate my risks of a lifetime of complications due to a damaged pelvic floor, the choice is attacked and in many cases denied by the medical community."
Piper also comments on Dr. Silvio's excellent blog post.
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