Hard labour

More women than ever are having their babies by Caesarian section. Not the old last-resort emergency type, either; the ones where mothers howl for days, to the point of peril for self or child, until mercy descends in a scalpel — life-saving, but adding to existing trauma. No. This marked increase, by as much as 40 per cent in one year at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, has been among women who elect a Caesarian; those who plan, often months in advance, to be delivered calmly, swiftly and relatively free of pain in a modern, controlled, 21st-century environment. In short: an increase in women who are aware that there is a choice and are happy to exercise it. So good news all round then.

Unless, that is, you read the coverage of these findings in pretty much any newspaper last week. From the Guardian to the Daily Mail, the consensus was absolute: this is a bad-news story reported in richly pejorative language.