Hospital where you can’t opt for a caesarean

A MAJOR hospital trust has banned women from having caesareans unless there is a medical reason.

Oxford University Hospitals will not offer them to those who are frightened or have had previous traumatic births.

Some women have had to travel miles to other hospitals to give birth while their families stay in local hotels.

The trust’s policy breaches guidelines from health watchdog Nice, which say women should be allowed a caesarean without a medical reason once the risks have been explained. Charities claim the trust is trying to save money and pressure more women into having a natural birth. Managers deny this and say caesareans, which take longer to recover from than natural births, are not always the best option.

The trust still offers caesareans to women in an emergency, if they are having twins or triplets, or have a medical condition which makes natural childbirth riskier.

But some claim they have been denied the procedure despite having medical complaints that would make them eligible. Last year caesareans accounted for 28 per cent of births on the NHS. This rate has trebled since the 1980s. Some midwives say women are being offered the procedure too readily because they are worried about pain.

Last year some 8,000 women gave birth at Oxford University Hospitals. Of these, 24 per cent had a caesarean. The trust’s policy is believed to be one of the strictest in the UK. They did not say when it came into place.

One woman, who spoke to the charity Birthrights, said she was told by staff she had ‘no chance’ of having a caesarean and should make her ‘own arrangements’. She drove 50 miles to a hospital in Gloucester. Another said she was refused a caesarean despite having fibroids – growths in the womb – which would usually make her eligible.

The Birth Trauma Association said the policy breached Nice guidelines and ‘common humanity’, adding: ‘We suspect it is driven by an ill- conceived desire to save money.’ A caesarean costs the NHS around £1,700, while a natural birth is about £750.

Oxford University Hospitals said its decision was ‘not related to targets but to good practice and reducing harm to women’.

Caesareans take longer to recover from than natural births. The wound may cause severe pain and some women need to be in hospital for three or four days.