An interesting experience if somewhat frustrating. Why have a guest on if the celebrity Dr is going to hold forth and talk over you. You live and learn.
Thankfully I managed to make a few points, which will hopefully help a few more women ask more questions of themselves and their practitioners. Unfortunately the programme is no longer available on ITV Player but here are a few sound bites from the interview:
“Informed choice is something which needs to be at the very forefront of the discussion and women that are making it [a request] purely on a ‘lifestyle’ choice, that are not basing it on the risk assessment that they need to think about, are not the caesareans that I would advocate.”
When asked if celebrity caesareans have influenced more women to favour caesarean birth… “I am sure it has, the unfortunate thing is what we don’t know, when these women make these choices is what the actual reasons are…often it is made as a broadbrush statement that they are ‘too posh to push’ and what we don’t know is the underlying reasons that they have. It is a very complex set of issues that women face when making these decisions and it is not often ‘we want to do this, because we just want to do this’.”