Women risk losing ability to give birth naturally

It may seem an inevitable part of the cycle of life, but according to a leading obstetrician, women are at risk of losing the ability to give birth naturally.

French doctor Michel Odent has suggested women risk being unable to give birth naturally or even breastfeed their babies in the future because of modern aids.

The 84-year-old, who pioneered the use of birthing pools in hospitals, has argued in his new book Do We Need Midwives? that childbirth has become medicalised to the extent that women are at risk of losing their ability to give birth unaided.

Mr Odent pointed to evidence that women are taking longer in labour than 50 years ago, with huge numbers of pregnant women provided with drugs and surgery in labour.

The medic cited research showing that women giving birth between 2002 and 2008 took two and a half hours longer in the first stage of labour than those who gave birth between 1959 and 1966.

“To me it demonstrates the obvious - that women are losing the capacity to give birth,” he said. “That is the primary phenomenon . . . the number of women who give birth to babies naturally is becoming insignificant.”

Odent is critical of the rise in caesarean sections. In England, 166,081 births - more than a quarter - were by caesarean section between 2013 and 2014, a slight increase on the previous year.

Odent has also criticised the use of drips of synthetic oxytocin on women in labour. He suggested that it was reducing women’s ability to produce the hormone naturally.

Follow NEWS.am Medicine on Facebook and Twitter