BirthAction, Inc.

July 21, 2010

Earlier this year, BirthAction participated at the National Institutes of Health's Consensus on VBAC. Today, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists responded to this outpouring of data on the safety of VBAC and the impact on women of repeat cesareans without access to vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC).

In light of this re-confirmation of over thirty years of VBAC safety, ACOG has changed its guidelines for its member physicians to encourage "the need for thorough counseling of benefits and risks, shared patient-doctor decision making, and the importance of patient autonomy. Moving forward, we need to work collaboratively with our patients and our colleagues, hospitals, and insurers to swing the pendulum back to fewer cesareans and a more reasonable VBAC rate."  Also within the guidelines is a recommendation for VBAC counseling for mothers carrying twins, who may have unknown scars and mothers who have had two previous cesareans.

BirthAction is excited about this reversal in stance and a movement towards women's freedom to make choices about their method of birth and would like to encourage women everywhere to share these changed guidelines with their providers and with hospitals that have previously impeded vaginal birth for women with prior cesareans.

For more information on ACOG's changed guidelines, you can visit their site, http://www.acog.org/from_home/publications/press_releases/nr07-21-10-1.cfm.

Contact:
Shannon Mitchell
Director
BirthAction.org
727-667-8039
director@birthaction.org

For a PDF version of this press release, click here.