Where can I get advice?

Hospitals remain under pressure to reduce their caesarean rate – despite recommendations to Inspectors to refrain from judging hospitals in this way. And where there are no targets in place, women can still face opposition from individual care givers.

This is why BirthRights – a UK information and advice centre – offer the option for 1:1 advice via their website.

They firmly believe in a woman’s right to an informed choice.

“Women have a right to make choices about the circumstances in which they give birth. This simple but powerful principle was established by the European Court of Human Rights in Ternovszky v Hungary (2010) under the right to private life in Article 8 of the European Convention which encompasses rights to physical autonomy and integrity. Article 8 is a ‘qualified right’ and so limitations on the right are permitted. The Ternovszky case concerned the right to give birth at home, but the principle applies equally to all choices that women make about childbirth. The decision represents a profound challenge to medical authority: if women have a legal right to make a choice, any limitation on that right must be justified. The decision-maker, whether a hospital or a doctor or midwife, must give proportionate reasons for their decision based on the individual circumstances of the woman and their reasons can be tested in court before a judge.”

To ask them a question click here.