hi all, thought you might be interested in this. was big news last week...

TENS of thousands of Australian women with low risk of birth complications are undergoing unnecessary medical interventions in private hospitals in a trend that a leading midwifery expert has described as ''horrifying''.

In a landmark study of nearly 700,000 women in NSW hospitals, those giving birth privately were found to have a 20 per cent lower chance of having their first child through normal vaginal delivery.

''The fact that these procedures which were initially life saving are now so commonplace and do not appear to be associated with improved [baby] death rates demands close review,'' found the study, to be published today in the British Medical Journal's open journal.



Read more: www.smh.com.au/.../...n-births-20120909-25mhi.html