{"id":50951,"date":"2026-07-07T07:20:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T07:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=50951"},"modified":"2026-07-07T07:20:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T07:20:32","slug":"people-keep-asking-me-why-im-choosing-to-have-a-caesarean-here-are-my-reasons-sharon-gaffka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=50951","title":{"rendered":"People keep asking me why I\u2019m choosing to have a caesarean \u2013\u00a0here are my reasons | Sharon Gaffka"},"content":{"rendered":"

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O<\/span>ne thing nobody really prepares you for when you\u2019re pregnant is how interested everyone suddenly becomes in your body. People ask if you\u2019re planning on breastfeeding. Whether you\u2019ll have an epidural. If you\u2019re hoping for a water birth. Whether you\u2019ll \u201ctry naturally\u201d.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve chosen to have a caesarean, and now that I\u2019m getting closer to my due date, the question I get asked most is: \u201c<\/em>why?\u201d <\/em>The answer is because I want to.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not writing this because I think everyone should have an elective caesarean. Far from it. Birth is unpredictable and there isn\u2019t one right way to do it. But births through caesarean section, planned and unplanned, have overtaken natural vaginal births in England for the first time, according to NHS figures from 2024-25. I think it\u2019s worth talking honestly about why I made my decision in this context, because I don\u2019t think it happened in isolation.<\/p>\n

Over the past few years, through my work, I have heard stories about birth that I will never forget. In February, I attended an event in parliament on birth trauma. I heard women speak about forceps injuries that left them with lifelong physical damage. One woman described repeatedly telling healthcare professionals that something didn\u2019t feel right during her pregnancy, only to later discover there was no heartbeat. She even asked for a caesarean after being told her baby had died. Her request was refused.<\/p>\n

What struck me wasn\u2019t just how heartbreaking those stories were, it was how similar they were. Again and again, women said the same thing: \u201cI wasn\u2019t listened to.\u201d Donna Ockenden\u2019s report on maternity services at Nottingham University hospitals NHS trust made plain that this isn\u2019t mere coincidence \u2013 this is an established pattern. She found that too many women experience a loss of autonomy and poor communication, and are excluded from decisions about their own care. Valerie Amos\u2019s review of maternity services across England offered an equally damning indictment this week. She found maternity care had not adjusted to older motherhood and the stark rise in the number of women having caesarean sections.<\/p>\n

Another report this year from the charity Birthrights revealed that many women feel under pressure to have medical procedures, including caesareans, during their maternity care. It found women are being repeatedly denied \u201cgenuine informed choice\u201d in their birthing options. After everything I heard about maternity care in the UK, I started asking myself if I would really be listened to during birth.<\/p>\n

There was another layer to it. Black and Asian women experience worse outcomes in pregnancy and childbirth than white women. As a British-Asian woman, I have known the statistics for years, but reading them while you are pregnant feels completely different. Statistics suddenly become personal.<\/p>\n

Then there was the fact that my own maternity trust was included in the national maternity investigation. My own care has actually been, for the most part, incredibly positive. I\u2019ve met kind midwives and healthcare professionals who have looked after me brilliantly. But knowing my trust was under investigation occupied a space in the back of my mind. It inevitably made me question how I could increase my chances of a good birth \u2013 no matter what that looked like.<\/p>\n

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The thing I\u2019ve found hardest about pregnancy is how much control you lose. You can\u2019t control how your body changes. You can\u2019t control how uncomfortable you become. You can\u2019t control how your birth will unfold. People often say to me: \u201cThe birth never goes to plan anyway.\u201d Maybe they are right. But if there was one decision I could make before everything became unpredictable, I wanted it to be mine. And for me, that was choosing a caesarean. Not because I think vaginal birth is wrong, not because I am \u201ctoo posh to push\u201d, not because I think every woman should do the same.<\/p>\n

It was simply because, after everything I\u2019d heard, everything I\u2019d read and everything I\u2019d experienced, it was the option that gave me the greatest sense of calm. Caesarean sections are major surgery and not without risk. But for me, giving birth in this way feels like a way of mitigating the many uncontrolled risks that the Ockenden report explores in such horrifying detail. This isn\u2019t an argument against vaginal birth. It\u2019s an argument for making sure women feel so safe, so listened to and so well supported that, whatever birth they choose, it genuinely feels like a choice and not the \u201cleast worst option\u201d.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what I hope maternity care in this country can become. I want a system where every woman, regardless of how she chooses to give birth, can go into labour with the confidence that she will be heard. Because surely that should be the minimum expectation, not the aspiration.<\/p>\n