Are our expectations realistic?

Body: 

I found some amazing statistics as to the reality of the chance of having a natural birth without intervention, at least in Australia. The survey was done to establish whether women had accurate expectations as to the chances of having a birth where “labour that starts by itself, progresses normally and the baby is born without help from forceps, suction cup or caesarean section. This means that labour is not induced, the woman does not need a drip to speed up labour, the baby does not need to have forceps or a suction cup to be delivered, the woman does not need a caesarean section, and the baby comes out head first (not breech). Pain relief such as gas, pethidine or an epidural is allowed in this definition. Also having a tear or cut is allowed in this definition.”

They found that the pregnant women thought they had a 56% chance of a non-interventionist birth and 30% of having an uncomplicated birth and not having stitches.

The real figures are only 20% will have a non-interventionist birth and only 8% will avoid tears and cuts.
Medical staff; obstetricians and midwives, students pre- and post obstetrician training were also highly optimistic in their responses with slightly lower figures than the pregnant women themselves.

They reported that the pregnant ladies’ reasoning was that it is a natural and normal process and that they expected their bodies to birth successfully.
They thought this undue optimism was an important consideration to take into account in the preparation for birth and the training of medical staff.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22221113

This is interesting. My experience has been that women intending to go into (public) hoital for birth here in NZ are encouraged by their lead maternity carers (LMCs - often independent midwives) to have low expectations ie. to expect that even if they are planning a drug-free natural birth, anything could happen. Our LMCs provide 6 weeks of post-natal care as well and I think with this advice they are focussing on reducing disappointment about birth experiences that can make the immediate PP period even more difficult. I guess it's easier to work on lowering individual women's expectations than changing the whole system. Wish I had more time to write more but have to go...