I never needed it in the first place: Unnecessary surgery - C section

When Barbara Stratton of Baltimore, Maryland, looks back at the birth of her son, Charlie, now 7, she’s angry — angry she had a surgery she believes she didn’t need. Babies delivered by C-section are at higher risk for complications, including breathing problems. Barbara said her obstetrician induced labor a week before her due date because she feared the baby would be too large to deliver if they waited for her to go into labor spontaneously. But even after being induced, her labor still didn’t progress, and she ended up with a Caesarean section. Her baby weighed 8 pounds, 7 ounces — far smaller than the obstetrician had predicted.

"I never needed the C-section in the first place," said Barbara.

The U.S. government and many obstetrical experts are working hard to reduce the number of women having C-sections. In 2004, 29% of babies in the U.S. were born by C-section, an increase of more than 40% since 1996. C-sections involve risks to the mother, including infections, bleeding, and pain. Babies born via C-sections have more breathing problems right after birth, according to the Office on Women's Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Many experts think as many as half of all C-sections are unnecessary, the women’s health office said.

Barbara said that because of surgical complications she was in pain every day for a year and a half after her son was born. She became depressed.

"I was in pain every time I rolled over, every time I got out of bed, every time I got out of a chair," Barbara said. "It affected the quality of my mothering. I had trouble bonding with my son."

After her own disappointing birth experience, Barbara became a doula - a birth assistant who can advocate for a woman in labor.

Advice to pregnant women: Don’t get induced unless medically necessary. Studies of first-time moms show that 44% of those who are induced end up with a C-section but that only 8% of those who go into labor spontaneously end up with a C-section. Doctors say many times, inducing women way before the cervix is ready can lead to unproductive labor, which then necessitates a C-section.

Read a sextuplet story, or read Elizabeth Cohen’s source story.

I’ve been robbed since I was 49: Malpractice - surgical error

An operation nearly two decades ago left her incontinent and in pain, shuffling from one medical appointment to the next in search of a way to repair a hole in her bladder. She says several subsequent surgeries and procedures failed to correct the problem.

For the past 17 years, Frances Borrow has lived with a plastic bag constantly strapped to her stomach that collects her urine, the legacy of a 1990 hysterectomy during which her bladder was accidentally sliced. "I've been robbed since I was 49 years old. From then on, it's been a nightmare. I was a very outgoing, happy person. It was like my whole world turned around. Nobody should have to live that way."

Frances is one of more than three dozen women who now say they suffered lasting physical and emotional injuries after surgery by a Scarborough obstetrician and gynecologist.

They all wonder if they could have avoided years of hardship had they known about his surgical complication rate, a string of malpractice suits against him and a pattern of patient complaints.

The documents, filed as part of a $500,000 lawsuit by one former patient in 2003, show that surgeon had complication rates for total abdominal hysterectomies (the surgical removal of the uterus by an incision in the abdominal wall rather than the vagina) of 30% in 2000, 30% in 2001, 9% in 2002 and 10% in 2003.

A 1992 Ohio study of 160,000 hysterectomies found a complication rate of 9% was the average for that operation.

The Ontario provincial government announced this week it will require hospitals to report unexpected death rates and infection rates alongside the wait times posted on a government website for procedures in five key areas, to be posted by Spring, 2008.

The government will not, however, publish the complication rates of individual surgeons.

Advice to patients about to undergo surgery: Find out the surgeon’s complication rate first.

Read another of our surgical error stories, or read the source story by Robert Cribb and Tanya Talaga on medical secrecy.