Danielle's VBAC + High Cesarean Rates The VBAC Link

Did you know that in South African private hospitals, where patients are better cared for, the C-section rate is 76%?! 

Joining us today all the way from South Africa is our friend, Danielle. She shares how she became part of that C-section statistic with her first birth, but also how she refused to let those numbers define her second birth. Though she fought an uphill battle, Danielle’s successful VBAC was an achievement that changed the course of her life. Her strength has paved the way for others in her area to no longer become a statistic and to no longer fear natural birth. 

Additional links
Natural Birth With Great Expectations Midwives
How to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for Parents
Full transcriptNote: All transcripts are edited to correct grammar, false starts, and filler words. 

Julie: Welcome, welcome. You are listening to The VBAC Link podcast with Julie and Meagan and we have a really special guest for you today. This is episode number 186. We have Danielle with us and Danielle is from South Africa. She had her C-section and her VBAC in South Africa. We were just chitchatting before we started recording the podcast. There are private and public hospitals and in the private hospitals, which is where you get the best care, the C-section rate is 76%. 76%!

Meagan: It’s so crazy to me. The crazy thing is that it’s where you get better care, but then–

Julie: –where you are treated better, I know.

Meagan: Yeah.

Julie: In public hospitals, the C-section rate is 24%. When you combine those two together– I mean, I guess it just depends on the population density that is giving birth in each of the hospitals and so I guess I can’t really come up with an overall rate there for the country. Maybe Danielle knows when she will share her story with us. But that is very, very large. 

Danielle had quite the battle to fight during her pregnancies, births, and deliveries, but we are going to go ahead and let her share that with you after Meagan reads a Review of the Week for us.
Review of the Week
Meagan: Okay. This is from Brittany and it was actually on Instagram. She sent us a message on Instagram. It says, “Meagan and Julie, I just wanted to thank you for your amazing podcast. I just had the VBAC of my dreams a few days ago and honestly could not have done it without the encouragement of you guys and the women who share their stories. I was hesitant in wanting a VBAC going into my second pregnancy, but you guys gave me the confidence to do it.”

Crazy enough, we just got a message today from someone saying, “I am super hesitant. I had a C-section with my first. I didn’t progress past a 3, so my provider is telling me I am not a good match for a VBAC. I don’t know what to do. Is that possible? What do I do?” And that is exactly what this podcast does. It does. It empowers you. It encourages you. It educates you to make the best decision whether it be a repeat C-section or a vaginal birth. 

So congratulations, Brittany, on your VBAC. We are so happy that this amazing podcast and we could help you. If you guys have had an experience or anything like that with the podcast, we would love to hear it. Feel free to do Apple Podcasts or like I said, Instagram, or Facebook. Send us a message. We would love to read your review on the podcast someday.

Julie: I love that so much. I just want to say that whenever people say, “Oh yeah. Your podcast empowered me” or whatever, I will be like, “Well, you had the empowerment in you all along. We may have helped you discover it and open it up a little bit, but you need to own that. You were empowered. You did it You took charge. We might have helped you discover that along the way, but give yourself some credit too because you are pretty awesome.” 

That’s what I think every time I hear that. It’s pretty cool. I love all of our listeners and I love everybody that takes the time to leave a review, especially. So like Meagan said, if you have f