Unnecessary Elective Surgeries at Good Samaritan! Pick Your Date!
Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 2:14PM 
The article Stoughton woman goes whole nine yards to make sure her baby is delivered on 9-9-09 was published yesterday in the Patriot Ledger.
BROCKTON — After a nine-month pregnancy, Christina Mayo thought it would only be right to have her baby on Wednesday — 9-9-09.
So the Stoughton woman scheduled her Cesarean section delivery for that day, even though her due date was Sept. 13.
“I guess I wanted it because it’s just a really easy date to remember,” Mayo, 28, said by phone Wednesday from her room at Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton. “It’s cool, you know?”
“I just had to convince my doctor that it made sense,” she added.
While this patient was able to convince her doctor that a scheduled cesarean for a vanity birthday made more sense than buying a five dollar calendar from Staples to help remember important dates, women across the country struggle on a daily basis to convince their doctors that proven, evidence-based practices make sense, such as:
- Letting labor begin on its own
- Staying mobile and changing positions in labor
- Having continuous support from a doula or support person
- Avoiding interventions that are not medically
- Not getting stuck at the staff’s insistence in the lithotomy position and following the body’s urges to push
- Keeping their baby with them immediately after birth and throughout their hospital stay as much as desired and possible
Cesareans at Caritas Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton are not hard to come by, as the hospital boasts a 39.7 percent cesarean rate. This number most likely indicating that while some doctors are giving away cesareans for no reason, other doctors are unnecessarily coercing and bullying women into unwanted and unneeded surgery.
The article does not mention if the unnecessary elective surgery was paid for out-of-pocket by the patient or if insurance was billed, nor did the number of women who had unnecessary cesareans at Good Samaritan on September 9, 2009, make the news.
More on the miracle of cesareans happening on their scheduled dates:
Lots of 9/9/09 babies, but one came at 9:09 a.m.
Wisconsin baby born at 9:09 on 9/9/09 weighing 9 pounds, 9 ounces
Morro Bay woman delivers baby at 9 a.m. on 9-9-09
Jill--Unnecesarean
Reader Margaret brought to my attention something very obvious. This might have been an elective repeat cesarean or a cesarean for medical reasons that was scheduled for 40 weeks and just bumped up a few days. While scheduling a cesarean for a few days earlier than a due date is commonplace and not something that would usually take any convincing, the article is short and vague enough where it might still have been a medically indicated cesarean.
In that case, the title sounds mean and unintentionally harsh to the mom in the story.
The point of this post was not to slam a woman for how they gave birth but rather the idea that a hospital with a 40 percent cesarean rate could show up with a cutesy feature article about toying around with scheduled due dates to have a vanity birthday while so many women at the same hospital are clearly being led into unnecessary cesareans. With more than 200 hospitals banning women from giving birth vaginally after a previous cesarean, the idea of having the freedom to choose elective surgery freely and with some gentle nudging of the physician illustrates what type of birth is more valuable among (some) medical professionals.
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Reader Comments (21)
Ugh. And yet, if she'd already been convinced to have a section, and told that it was safe, and told that a few days here or there made no difference, it's hard to really blame her for bumping it up by four days. I'm not saying I liked scheduled sections - not at ALL - but I can definitely see how this seemed like a totally reasonable request to her, and to her hack of a doctor.
*sigh* It's a never ending battle, isn't it?
I pretty much have nothing to say :(
There's a private hospital in my town had an 82% c-section rate for one month!
well, at least it was after 39 weeks! what i'd like to know is if either of her other two children mentioned in the article were c/sections. Was this an elective repeat? or an elective primary? elective primary is way more disgusting-a c/s just to pick the birthday?
“It’s cool, you know?”
No, I don't know, Christina. The last time I checked, there was nothing cool about making the CHOICE to:
1) have major abdominal surgery
2) raise my chances of contracting MRSA
3) raise my risks of DYING and leaving my baby an orphan
4) swell up with gas after surgery (everyone LOVES gas pain and farting after all)
5) hold a pillow over my incision to laugh, cough, sneeze, or hold my baby
6) increase my sweet newborn babe's chances of being needlessly separated from me, having respiratory diseases, spending time in a NICU, and having difficulty with breastfeeding
7) risk developing placenta percreta in any future pregnancies (which could lead to loss of my uterus AND my bladder. Spending the rest of my days peeing into a bag strapped to my side sounds like the perfect accessory to wear to the grocery store, soccer games, and even weddings!)
I will never think that you or your OB made a choice that "made sense"
Nonetheless, I am pleased that your baby was born safely and do wish you a speedy and peaceful recovery.
My mom has never forgotten my birthday, and I'm her third child. On the other hand, I am a Christmas baby, soo...
My mom gave birth to me naturally and I was delivered by a midwife. However, this was all intentional. I was born before the doctor got there, and I came so quickly that there was no time for an epidural. She was, however, amazed at how good she felt after I was born.
So, why is it so hard to remember your kid's birthday, huh? Geez.
Is it weird this makes me cry??
I think that the natural birth movement takes steps forward, and then you hear about things like this. Sometimes it gets old just fighting the system. Wondering if you will ever reach the top of this uphill battle.
Excuse me while I wipe the remaining barf off of my mouth.
It's bad enough that this women doesn't take her and her babys' health seriously.... but the doctor? Isn't that unethical practice? Don't they take the Hippocratic Oath? Isn't it supposed to mean anything?
Sometimes I just want to throw my hands up...
hmmm, i can't believe this woman said some o this stuff.
I'd be embarassed of myself. would she not be able to remember her child's birth if it were not 999? i remembered my son's birthday because it was the most life changing day of my life. not because it was some cool date. ridculous
Ok I am very pro NCB and VBAC...but I don't get the tone of a lot of the comments on here. We don't know her reason for having a csection...the article said she has two kids already, perhaps she has had all csections and opted for a third. Perhaps she has a condition that necessitates a cesarean, we don't know! So why all the judgement?
I mean ya, picking your child's date because of numbers is a little silly...but at least she is past 39 weeks.
What DOES anger me is that someone could have that much control over her birth simply because she is an RCS, and the choices for VBAC and NCB are so drastically limited. Now THAT is something to be upset about, not someone else's birth choices.
You know a lot of women believe that to say anything negative about this woman's decision is anti-feminist because it points us against ourselves. Yet, I can totally understand and identify with a lot of the comments here. I agree that this is abhorrent to me. Still, I am more saddened by the fact that our culture promotes these ideas. I don't blame the mother as much as the masses. We live in a paradigm where its social acceptable to select birth for such a silly reason as choosing a birthday. How long until we are choosing their eye color, gender, height, intelligence, or some other characteristic? Most people applaud this woman's right to choose her birth experience. What is discounted is the actual danger and idiocy at play. How far we are from praising birth as a right of passage, as a miracle, as a precious awakening. Some of us know what birth can be as an empowering experience. Birthing ability and nursing ability are the reasons women were idolized in ancient pagan religions. Yet now it is a small "movement" that involves passing minimal laws to protect our very humanity; to protect our rights to choose drug and intervention free, for our right to breastfeed our children as biology or God (whichever you prefer) had intended us to. I am sad that we are the vast minority.
Maybe I missed something...Jill your title says unnecessary cesarean, but I don't see any information in the article that confirms it is the case. It just says she wanted to schedule it for that date.
Did I miss something?
Jill your comment about the calendar from Staples about cracked me up.
“I guess I wanted it because it’s just a really easy date to remember,” Mayo, 28, said by phone Wednesday from her room at Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton. “It’s cool, you know?”
It certainly seems to me that she "wanted it" (the cesarean on 9-9-09) because its easy to remember the child's birthdate. It certainly sounds like that is the sole reason for the elective cesarean. Because this girl believes its cool to choose your kid's birthday and even cooler to pick a date like 9-9-09.
Clarissa- Ya but lots of women with scheduled repeat cesareans pick the date. It could be she already had a date scheduled and changed because she wanted that certain date.
I mean it is still a little silly, but it doesn't prove it was an 100% elective c-section with no medical indication or simply another RCS.
I do think it's true that the information given was a little ambiguous. The article doesn't come right out and say that this was an elective cesarean. It's strongly implied, I feel, but it definitely doesn't say specifically one way or the other. I really wish it HAD, though, because the end result is that the article therefore SEEMS to encourage elective cesareans for completely frivolous reasons - and that's the main problem *I* have with this whole thing.
Margaret,
Crap. You're right. I was thrown off by the idea that a woman would have to convince their doctor that it made sense to schedule a cesarean to have the right birthday. I don't know what doctor wouldn't have a problem scheduling a cesarean that was previously scheduled for 40 weeks for 39 4/7.
I'm with you too on the frustrating part of this story. People choose different types of elective surgery for a lot of reasons and those reasons are really none of my business. It's just ridiculous that a doctor was persuaded to play around with delivery dates and, like you said, allow someone "that much control over her birth simply because she is an RCS" [maybe] when it's so hard to find a place to just give birth vaginally. I left this in response to someone earlier today on the Facebook page:
"...yeah, I'm not bashing the birth of her kid; rather, just irritated that there are so, so many women trying to VBAC in hospitals and getting worn out by the fight. With that in mind and reading how it was so easy to just schedule a c/s for kicks, I want to see the opposite happen and see women encouraged to VBAC and told about how safe it is."
I'm going to stick a little blurb on the story because without it, the title could sound really nasty. Thank you so much for catching that.
Jill
Ya I agree Dou-la-la, it does come off as downplaying the seriousness of a cesarean. The reason the article upsets me is that those with cesareans seem to get so much more say than those wanting VBACs. Beyond that though, this article is NOT worth getting upset about as it gives almost no information for the reason why she is having a cesarean at all. I don't think its helpful for people to get upset specifically at this woman and her birth choices, especially when we know almost nothing about her (unless Jill has info we don't).
I have a feeling the writing of the article went like this back in the newsroom...kind of like it does in local newspapers with the first baby of the year. Many of them like to interview the mom and baby, I think in my area at least they also get some sort of prize.
Writer A: Hmm, we should do a story on the whole 9-09-09 thing.
Writer B: But what? Nutsos expecting the apocalypse?
Writer A: No no. Hmmm.
Writer B: Wouldn't that be crazy to be born on 9-09-09? We could interview a new mom.
Writer A: Sure! Maybe there was someone who specifically chose to have the baby on the date for superstitious or superficial reasons!
Then writers contact hospital, find someone who elected to have their baby that day, (probably not hard, people with Repeat C-sections who just figured what the heck? I am going to deliver that week anyway, lets make the day interesting.). Interviews mom who probably gives an explanation of why she is having a csection (maybe she had others) and then how she got to deliver on that specific day. Writers type up brief easy story, keeping to bare minimum ignoring "less interesting' details.
Not very newsworthy in my opinion, and it does treat csections lightly but eh. Ya. Could be a likely scenario. Maybe she just all of a sudden elected for major abdominal surgery, even though she already has two kids. Or maybe she already had c sections and decided to have another (or was pressured into another one). Or maybe she had a good medical reason for a c section. This article is too ambiguous to tell.
"Ya I saw that post of yours on fac"...yeah, I'm not bashing the birth of her kid; rather, just irritated that there are so, so many women trying to VBAC in hospitals and getting worn out by the fight. With that in mind and reading how it was so easy to just schedule a c/s for kicks, I want to see the opposite happen and see women encouraged to VBAC and told about how safe it is."
---Totally agree with your comment. As someone 30 weeks pregnant and planning a VBAC, I am so frustrated with defending my choice as if giving birth vaginally is some crazzzyyy new concept. It's not a procedure people, its the natural result of pregnancy!! :)
Thanks for clarifying your thoughts! I love your blog and it is so encouraging to me!
My midwife delivered a 9-9-9 baby girl at her birth center. Some things are right with the world. :)
"“I guess I wanted it because it’s just a really easy date to remember,” "
Really? You're going to forget your own childs birthday if you don't have a c/section on 9/9/09.
Sorry, I don't buy that.