Cash-strapped hospitals are banning hundreds of women from having a caesarean birth, it emerged today.
A number of NHS trusts have said they will only give the go-ahead for a c-section if the woman’s health would be put at risk by a natural birth.
They have launched the crackdown on women who are ‘too posh to push’ – saying it wastes millions of pounds of NHS money every year.
Most hospitals already discourage women from having c-sections by outlining the potential risks to both mother and baby.
But now some trusts are going further by ruling them out on financial rather than medical grounds – meaning it will be even harder for women to get a caesarean on the Health Service.
Some mothers have attacked the restrictions, saying it should be a woman’s right to choose how their baby is born.
One quarter of all births in the UK are now by caesarean section, up from just 9 percent in 1980, despite a campaign by the World Health Organisation which believes there is no justification for any country having a rate exceeding 15 percent.
A planned caesarean costs around ￡2,600 – much more than the ￡1,200 cost of a natural birth without complications; taking money from strained NHS budgets away from other priorities such as heart disease and cancer.
Economists estimate that a drop of 1 percent in the proportion of women having the surgery would save the NHS some ￡5.6million a year.
Dr Michael Dixon, chairman of the NHS Alliance, which represents GPs who run health service budgets, said: ‘We are going to need to balance all sorts of things in future, from cancer to heart disease. When it comes to treatments we may need to spend less on, that [caesareans] may be one.’
The bans only affect planned caesareans, not c-sections which are carried out for emergency reasons. And if a natural birth would pose a health risk for mother or baby, a c-section would be allowed.
Health experts have long argued that women should go for a natural birth because the risks are lower. A birth by c-section increases a baby’s chance of breathing difficulties, and mothers may find it harder to bond with a child while recovering from a major operation. They can also suffer potentially fatal placenta problems.
有消息称，由于医院资金紧张，英国成百上千位孕妇被禁止剖腹产子。
英国国民卫生服务体系（NHS）基金会所辖的多家医疗机构表示，只有当孕妇顺产面临危险时，才会允许剖腹产。
这对那些号称“分娩用力不时髦”的孕妇们是个不小的打击。据称，剖腹产每年会浪费掉NHS上百万英镑的资金。
大多数医院已经劝孕妇们不要进行剖腹产，向她们描绘出剖腹产对母婴的潜在风险。
但如今，不少基金会成员医院出于经济原因，而不是医疗原因下了剖腹产禁令，这意味着英国女性想在NHS体系内进行剖腹产更困难了。
一些妈妈们抨击了这一禁令，称怎么生宝宝是女人的权利。
英国剖腹产的比例目前是四分之一，而1980年这一比例仅有9%。世界卫生组织发起的一项活动称，任何国家的剖腹产率高于15%都是不合理的。
一次有计划的剖腹产费用大约在2600英镑左右，而顺产只需1200英镑，要低得多，而且不会引起并发症。NHS的预算本来就捉襟见肘，钱应该优先用于治疗心脏病、癌症等疾病。
经济学家估计，剖腹产率每下降1个百分点，NHS每年就可以节省560万英镑。
NHS联盟（代表执行医疗预算的全科医生）主席、迈克尔?迪克逊博士说：“未来我们需要平衡从癌症到心脏病治疗等各项医疗经费。涉及到治疗，我们要少花点儿了，剖腹产可能就是其中之一。”
该禁令只针对有计划的剖腹产，紧急实行的剖腹产不在此列。如果顺产会威胁母婴健康，允许进行剖腹产。
健康专家们一直都认为，孕妇应该首选顺产，因为风险更低。剖腹产会增加宝宝呼吸困难的机率，而在术后康复的过程中，妈妈也会发现更难和孩子亲近起来。孕妇还可能遇到致命的胎盘问题。
实习生：李帅男
（责任编辑:实习飞刀）
