In several areas of Bucharest, panels have appeared advising future mothers to inquire about the benefits of natural birth, to the detriment of caesarean sections. Nothing wrong so far, because doctors also recommend natural childbirth as the first option. However, the controversy arises from the way in which these messages are formulated, which some women perceive as discriminatory. In addition, the panels do not provide any information about the authors of the campaign and do not include any link to an official website or source. This has led many to wonder who is actually behind them.
The messages of the boards, discussed on social networks
On social media, discussions on these boards have hundreds of comments. The most frequent questions concern their provenance.
,,Ok, but who paid for the poster? I’ve seen some too”;
“They have absolutely no website, no name, no logo on the posters. It is definitely not something of information made by any state institution. My feeling is that we will soon find out and that it is something politically motivated, similar to CpF, given the appeal to pseudo-science”;
“I also saw this week from the bus and it seems suspicious to me that it doesn’t say who is doing this advertising campaign, because that’s what it is. If there were a shred of good intentions, they would have at least a doctor, an authority behind them“;
“On the one hand, I don’t really want people to see medical advice on billboards. On the other hand, the message is correct. I am quite ambiguous. As long as others don’t feel like putting up billboards with nonsense, this campaign in particular I suppose is ok”
are just some of the comments on the Reddit platform.
Other comments target the messages themselves, with arguments for or against.
And on Facebook, the boards are a topic of discussion, and women who have given birth by caesarean even see them as a form of discrimination.
,, <
> write maaaare. And the Call-to-Action is < > .The brand behind the poster supports natural birth. He wants to educate, invite, convince. Okay, I got it. But the problem is that… the message he put on the street does the exact opposite. What does the poster actually do? Treat the C-section like a bau-bau. Like caesarean section is a mistake and you, if you choose to give birth that way, are the worst mother for your child. The point is that C-section is NOT a mistake. It’s a life-saving medical procedure. Sometimes it is an emergency, when the mother or the child have no other chance, sometimes it is a conscious choice of the woman, taken in full knowledge of the cause. And it has every right to be. It’s her body. Now put yourself in the shoes of the woman who gave birth by emergency caesarean section. Or who chose caesarean section and is at peace with her decision. Or who’s pregnant and just found out she’s going to have a C-section next week. How does she feel when she reads this poster on a billboard in traffic?”
it says in a post, which belongs to Natalia Dogaru. The woman also added that she sent a petition to the National Council for Combating Discrimination (CNCD).
The reasons why more than half of the resident doctors in Romania are considering leaving the country
Dr. Ciprian Pop-Began: “Try to create awareness through fear, not through accurate information”
The panels start from real statistics: Romania is consistently at the top of European countries in the number of caesarean sections, with 44% of births performed in this way. Much more than the recommendations of the World Health Organization, according to which the percentage of births of this kind should not exceed 15%.
“Information is necessary, but not like this, from my point of view”says Dr. Ciprian Pop-Began, Primary Obstetrics-Gynecology physician.
“It seems to me, but it’s my personal opinion, not as a doctor, that part of them is trying to create awareness through fear. Not by accurate information. The expression is far too brief to be able to make a focused awareness. Awareness means, first of all, to bring a focused supply of information, so that they can also read it on the Internet, but without filtering”, he continues.
According to the doctor, the decision regarding childbirth should be made according to three factors:
“It should be taken taking into account the mother’s interest in the first place; secondly, the interest of the fetus and, thirdly, the interest of the couple – maternal-fetal”
Certain conditions, such as heart disease (in the case of the mother), fetal distress (in the case of the baby) or placenta previa (which endangers both the life of the mother and the fetus) are some of the indications that can lead to a cesarean section, says Dr. Began. The decision must always be made after discussions with the doctors, he adds.
The doctor also draws attention to a wrongly transmitted information from one of the posters, the one according to which “through caesarean section, the lack of dilations and contractions are transmitted from mother to daughter”.
,There is no such thing. Yes, the constellation leading to a caesarean section and the daughter can be transmitted. That is, for example, if the mother has a surgical pelvis – that is, a very tight pelvis – the girl can develop the same type of pelvis. (…) It’s not even about the lack of dilations and contractions, it’s the lack of progression of labor. You need to have some criteria by which to define a clearly established labor and differentiate it from a false labor. Well, this clearly established labor involves some changes in the cervix and some characteristics of uterine contractions. They must be progressive in three respects: in terms of frequency, intensity and duration. If these three conditions of contractions are met and we also have changes in the cervix, we are talking about a clearly established labor, which must cause a certain dilatation at the level of the cervix. To the extent that they do not determine or contractions, although they initially define an effective labor, they do not maintain their characteristics – these things are genetically conditioned (…) they can be inherited. So it’s totally the wrong wording“, explains Began.
However, these conditions are not related to the decision to give birth naturally or by caesarean section, says Dr. Pop-Began.
We asked the press office of the Capital City Hall for an answer regarding the provenance of the panels – to whom they belong and who paid for them. Until the time of publication of the article, I have not received a reply,
