Three Brutally Honest Tips for Avoiding a C-Section
The C-section rate in the U.S. has skyrocketed over the past 40 years, climbing from around 5% in the 1970s to over 30% today. In some hospitals, that number is well over 40%. Are women’s bodies just failing at physiological birth more than ever before? Absolutely not. But the system is failing women at an unprecedented rate.
C-sections can be lifesaving in true emergencies, but they were never meant to be a routine way of birth. The risks of surgical birth are real: higher rates of infection and surgical complications, higher risk of hemorrhage, causing potential complications in future pregnancies, delayed breastfeeding initiation, disrupted bonding, and a complete bypass of the baby’s exposure to the microbiome that helps establish lifelong immune health. And that’s just scratching the surface of the physical side. The emotional toll of an unexpected or unnecessary C-section can be profound, leaving women with birth trauma, deep grief, and a sense of disconnection from their experience.
This is why avoiding an unnecessary surgical birth isn’t about bragging rights—it’s about protecting your body, your baby, and your long-term well-being. But in a system designed to move women through labor like an assembly line, avoiding a C-section requires intention. Here are my three brutally honest tips for avoiding a surgical birth.
1. Don’t Hire a Surgeon as Your Birth Provider
This one might sting, but it’s the simple truth: OB-GYNs are trained surgeons. Their entire education and their framework for birth, is built around problem-solving with medical and surgical interventions. And while some OBs are more patient than others, they are largely conditioned to see birth as something that needs managing, controlling, and speeding up. Even the most “natural-minded” OB is still operating within a hospital system that is structured for efficiency, risk mitigation, and liability—not for protecting undisturbed birth.
Midwives, on the other hand, are trained in physiological birth. Many of them view birth as a natural process not a medical condition or problem to be solved. Women under midwifery care have significantly lower rates of C-sections, inductions, and other interventions. That’s because most midwives don’t treat birth like a disaster waiting to happen. They tend to trust the process, trust the body, and trust women. I’m not suggesting that midwives are the perfect solution - you still need to be highly selective with who you invite into your birth space. My own midwife brought an element of sabotage and trauma to my homebirth. Even though it was largely a wonderful experience and I avoided surgical birth, she did still interfere and my birth experience was not trauma-free. That’s a whole other blog post.
If you truly want to avoid a C-section, hiring the support of someone that is not a surgeon and trusts physiological birth is one of the most powerful choices you can make. If you’re staying in the hospital system, a midwife is still a better option than an OB. But remember, hospital-based midwives are still working under OB supervision, which means they’re often bound by the same restrictive policies. Choosing a provider isn’t just about their personality or how “nice” they seem; it’s about the system they operate in and whether that system will support or sabotage your birth.
Hiring a provider or support person who is not a surgeon is a great place to start, but it’s not the end of the work— it’s just the beginning.
2. Don’t Elect to Get Induced Unless It’s Truly Medically Necessary (Hint: this need is much more rare than actual induction rates)
Induction is one of the biggest culprits behind the rising C-section rate. The more we interfere with birth, the more we disrupt the intricate hormonal dance that helps labor unfold smoothly. Artificially forcing labor before the body and baby are fully ready often leads to longer, more painful labors with a cascade of interventions that frequently end in distress—and distress is the number one reason given for emergency C-sections. When you stress the mom, you stress the baby.
Hospital induction rates are at an all-time high, and let’s be honest—most of these inductions aren’t happening because of actual medical emergencies. They’re happening because of (often incorrectly) estimated big babies, provider convenience, outdated due date calculations, or the hospital’s fear of litigation. None of these are good enough reasons to interfere with a process as delicate as birth.
Pitocin, the synthetic hormone used in most inductions, creates contractions that are more intense and frequent than natural contractions. This puts stress on the baby, increases the likelihood of an epidural (which then increases the likelihood of stalled labor and other complications), and makes C-sections far more likely. If you want to give yourself the best chance of avoiding the OR, let your baby decide their own birthday.
3. Do the Work & Take Radical Responsibility
This one holds a lot of weight. Birth isn’t something that just happens to you— you are an active participant, the main character. Birth is something you prepare for, claim, and create. If you’re birthing in the system, go in with your eyes wide open. Understand that unfortunately, hospital policies are not designed for your best interest; they’re designed for efficiency, liability protection, and profit. No provider, no birth plan, no doula can fully protect you from a system that prioritizes its own interests over your autonomy. If you choose to birth there, but don’t desire unnecessary medical interventions, then you have to take radical responsibility for that decision and understand the statistics, your rights of informed consent and refusal, and that no one is coming to save you in this broken system.
This means educating yourself beyond what your doctor tells you. It means taking childbirth education from a source outside the hospital system, where you’ll actually learn about physiological birth, your rights, and how to advocate for yourself. It means understanding hospital coercion tactics so you can recognize them in real time. It means walking into birth fully informed, fully aware, and fully prepared to fight if necessary for the experience you want. This is unfortunate since the delicate dance of birth operates best when mama is feeling safe and secure not in a state of fight or flight.
If you don’t want to play that harsh game? You don’t have to. You can birth at home, or completely outside the system if that’s what calls to you. But that path also requires deep work. Personal work. The unearthing of hidden fears and shadows. You have to become the kind of woman who trusts her body fully. The kind of woman who surrounds herself with people who truly believe in her ability to birth. The kind of woman who takes full ownership of her experience, knowing that no one else is coming to save her. The kind of woman who lives the way she wants to birth. I believe that with intention, trust, and hard work, you can create your ideal birth.
Birth as an Initiation
The way you birth matters—not just because of the immediate experience, but because birth is an initiation. It is the first step into motherhood, into self-trust, into embodied knowing. The way you feel during birth can shape how you step into that role. It shapes your confidence, your motherly intuition, and your ability to trust yourself and the choices you will make for your child for years to come.
I have so much compassion for women experiencing this faulty industrialized system of birth. I want the best for you. I want the best for your baby. And I know from experience as a doula and a mother that doesn’t happen by accident—it happens when women take radical responsibility for themselves and their births. The system is broken, but you don’t have to be broken down by it. Whether you choose to navigate it or step outside of it, the power is yours, mama. But only if you take it. I hope you choose to birth in power.
If this sparks something in you — positive or negative— feel free to reach out to me. I’d be honored to talk with you about it.
