Two international maternity meetings: 'birth, culture and society' and 'BICOG 2007': multidisciplinary meetings focusing on different aspects of maternal health were held in London, UK, in June and July 2007.

Biomedical knowledge, culture, safety and maternal health policy: international perspectives

Midwives, doctors and others gathered for this symposium at King's College London, UK, on June 18, 2007. Jane Sandall, co-chair of the ICM Research Standing Committee, and Edwin van Teijlingen of Aberdeen University, on behalf of the Birth, Culture and Society International Study Group, were organisers. They aimed to illuminate cross-national comparisons of the social shaping of biomedical knowledge production and the relationship with maternal health policy.

Gene Declercq of Boston University, USA, opened with a talk on 'The caesarean imperative in industrialized countries and its relationship to maternal attitudes'. He explored the often repeated statement that women's own choices are the cause of rising Caesarean (CS) rates, but found little evidence for this, showing that the pressure comes from obstetricians onto women, not vice versa. He noted that clinical indications for carrying out a CS have not changed over several decades, but attitudes have. He felt that there was a common' one-percent-doctrine' among obstetricians, i.e. if there is a 1% risk then the solution is to...