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‘Maternal request’ caesarean sections and medical necessity

Currently, many women who are expecting to give birth have no option but to attempt vaginal delivery, since access to elective planned caesarean sections (PCS) in the absence of what is deemed to constitute ‘clinical need’ is variable. In this paper, we argue that PCS should be routinely offered to...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Brown, Rebecca CH, Mulligan, Andrea
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7614977/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37635933
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/14777509231183365
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author Brown, Rebecca CH
Mulligan, Andrea
author_facet Brown, Rebecca CH
Mulligan, Andrea
author_sort Brown, Rebecca CH
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description Currently, many women who are expecting to give birth have no option but to attempt vaginal delivery, since access to elective planned caesarean sections (PCS) in the absence of what is deemed to constitute ‘clinical need’ is variable. In this paper, we argue that PCS should be routinely offered to women who are expecting to give birth, and that the risks and benefits of PCS as compared with planned vaginal delivery should be discussed with them. Currently, discussions of elective PCS arise in the context of what are called ‘Maternal Request Caesarean Sections’ (MRCS) and there is a good deal of support for the position that women who request PCS without clinical indication should be provided with them. Our argument goes further than support for acceding to requests for MRCS: we submit that healthcare practitioners caring for women with uncomplicated pregnancies have a positive duty to inform them of the option of PCS as opposed to assuming vaginal delivery as a default, and to provide (or arrange for the provision of) PCS if that is the woman's preferred manner of delivery.
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spelling pubmed-76149772023-09-01 ‘Maternal request’ caesarean sections and medical necessity Brown, Rebecca CH Mulligan, Andrea Clin Ethics Papers Currently, many women who are expecting to give birth have no option but to attempt vaginal delivery, since access to elective planned caesarean sections (PCS) in the absence of what is deemed to constitute ‘clinical need’ is variable. In this paper, we argue that PCS should be routinely offered to women who are expecting to give birth, and that the risks and benefits of PCS as compared with planned vaginal delivery should be discussed with them. Currently, discussions of elective PCS arise in the context of what are called ‘Maternal Request Caesarean Sections’ (MRCS) and there is a good deal of support for the position that women who request PCS without clinical indication should be provided with them. Our argument goes further than support for acceding to requests for MRCS: we submit that healthcare practitioners caring for women with uncomplicated pregnancies have a positive duty to inform them of the option of PCS as opposed to assuming vaginal delivery as a default, and to provide (or arrange for the provision of) PCS if that is the woman's preferred manner of delivery. SAGE Publications 2023-06-26 2023-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7614977/ /pubmed/37635933 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/14777509231183365 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Papers
Brown, Rebecca CH
Mulligan, Andrea
‘Maternal request’ caesarean sections and medical necessity
title ‘Maternal request’ caesarean sections and medical necessity
title_full ‘Maternal request’ caesarean sections and medical necessity
title_fullStr ‘Maternal request’ caesarean sections and medical necessity
title_full_unstemmed ‘Maternal request’ caesarean sections and medical necessity
title_short ‘Maternal request’ caesarean sections and medical necessity
title_sort ‘maternal request’ caesarean sections and medical necessity
topic Papers
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7614977/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37635933
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/14777509231183365
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