Increasingly, many hospitals are no longer offering women VBACs due to the American College of Obstetrics' recent recommendation that hospitals not offer VBACs without an anesthesiologist and surgeon on staff. Financially this inhibits many rural hospitals from serving women in this way even when they want to, as it opens them up to additional liability if they do. For this reason, I am getting lots of calls from women who are not willing to sign up for a repeat Ceasarean section and feel a HBAC is their only viable alternative.
Hospitals who do still offer VBACs no longer call them VBACs; instead they call them TOLACs which, in my mind, sets women up for failure as it doesn't positively reflect that they will succeed. This makes me angry. While I am always more than happy to offer homebirth as an alternative, not all women are suitable candidates, and this will leave them out in the cold.
What are your thoughts on this?
