Natural birth? Nope, C-Section rates on rise Docs, midwives cite concerns, dispute reasons

Portland obstetrician Duncan Neilson says that up until about 10 years ago, he had never had a healthy pregnant patient ask him to schedule a labor induction and surgical Caesarean section for the birth of her baby.

“If someone had asked me to just do a C-section for no reason, I would have probably regarded them as nuts and done everything I could to talk them out of it,” says Neilson, chief of women’s services at Legacy Health Systems.

Now, Neilson says, it isn’t uncommon for women to want to schedule a C-section even though their pregnancies are going perfectly well. And obstetricians, he says, are less likely to try to talk women out of scheduled C-sections, since when they do, the women say they will simply find another obstetrician.

Pamela Echeverio, a Northeast Portland midwife, has a different take on the way doctors are dealing with maternity patients.

“We do obstetrics wrong in this country,” Echeverio says.

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