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PaperclipPerfector  18d ago (text post)   27026 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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Just saw this geographic fertility map of Turkey on reddit. The statistics were released yesterday:

https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1ctccjz/turkish_fertility_rate_20162023_comparison_oc/

Population map for comparison (urban rate is a whopping 75%):
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Visualizing-Population-Density-in-Turkey-Full-Size.html

In 7 short years FTR crashed from 2.11 in 2016 to 1.5 in 2023.

https://ilkha.com/english/health-life/turkiyes-birth-rate-declines-despite-ranking-high-in-europe-393736

Women get children later (average is now 29 years; which is older than in the US (27 years in 2021)) and there is an increase in one-person households (14.4% -> 19.7%)

And despite President Erdoğan being more powerful and way more conservative (out of touch?) than other leaders:

https://www.turkishminute.com/2024/05/16/turkey-records-dramatic-decline-in-its-fertility-rate-official-data/

The alarming decline in Turkey’s birth rate comes against the backdrop of frequent calls from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who advises families to have at least three children to boost the country’s population, drawing the ire of feminist groups and women’s rights associations. He also advises “Muslim families” not to use birth control or family planning and opposes C-sections as well, angering the same organizations.

What's wrong with C-sections? Let me try to answer my own question. It looks complicated: https://islamqa.info/en/answers/92831/ruling-on-caesarean-births

There appears to be some sort of stigma attached to it, and a belief it makes future pregnancy less likely? I lack the background to know if any of this is true.

Doctors don’t recommend multiple cesareans because the scarring accumulates and leads to bad outcomes.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/c-section/expert-answers/c-sections/faq-20058380#:~:text=Each%20repeat%20C%2Dsection%20is,Problems%20with%20the%20placenta.

On the other hand, doctors often will not allow a vaginal birth after a cesarean. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/labor-and-delivery/in-depth/vbac/art-20044869

So once you have one cesarean, you’re pretty much going to have only cesareans, which will limit the number of healthy pregnancies.

—— on a slightly related note, I've heard stories from mothers where the doctors basically decided to do a cesarean because the labor was taking too long and the doctor didn't want to stick around.

I wouldn't call it "don't allow." VBAC's can be very dangerous, they can also be safe, the relevant care team will likely try to assess the risks and summarize for the patient. OB is pretty notorious for being a bit more heavy handed with consent than some specialties, but that's ultimately not that unreasonable when many women are interested in fucking off and having a "natural" birth at home even when it's high risk to the baby and mom (and notoriously, will see the doctor even when it's a consequence of their own shitty decision).

This over focus on outcomes and liability potential is also why you shouldn't trust those stories from mothers. Yes it probably happens at times, and certainly used to be more common back in the days when OB was >85% male instead of >85% female, but OBs are way too worried about getting sued and making sure the baby is okay to do that for the most part.*

And hospitals are very likely to have a dedicated laborist these days anyway.

*"Force" mom to have a C-Section and something goes wrong because you wanted to go play golf? That's a multi-million dollar liability judgement. Everyone knows that isn't worth it.

on a slightly related note, I've heard stories from mothers where the doctors basically decided to do a cesarean because the labor was taking too long and the doctor didn't want to stick around.

Yeah, my state has gone back to a midwives by default, call a doctor if necessary protocol, even in the hospitals, because of that kind of thing.

I certainly can't imagine many women having 4 or more children if all of them had to be born via C-section. We have an interesting natural experiment in Brazil, where the C-section rate seems astronomically high.

I guess in the end it all boils down to the simple advice that "you should have your first child while you're still young". You can imagine how popular that is among women anywhere.

I think it has something to do with scarring from multiple c-sections, and longer recovery time. My mother said that one of the big reasons she never had a third child was because the first was a c-section, and at the time they just automatically recommended it for subsequent births, and then the second was harder to recover from and she didn't want to do it again.

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