Five is our special number at the moment and so we look at the numbers for my last 525 births which are audited on the website surgicalperformance.com.
When I've published these before it's caused some debate but I continue to do it in the interests of transparency.
We remain the only practice in the Hunter that shares these with our patients and they can be seen on the Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/droliverbrown/
The figures show I have a slowly rising elective caesarean section rate at 32% but a reducing emergency caesarean section rate of less than 10% - giving an overall rate of 42%.
This compares with Newcastle Private Hospitals' 2018 overall rate of 60% for primiparous patients and interestingly the emergency caesarean section rate of 25%.
This suggests to me I am converting Emergency caesarean sections - which are 3 times riskier - into calmer Elective procedures by observing warning bell signs ante-natally and discussing the options with patients.
I have virtually abandoned the use of obstetric forceps for vaginal births and my 3 patients on the database will know these are the small Wrigley forceps used to complete a delivery when the ventouse won't stay on.
The numbers show that for instrumental vaginal delivery I will do 14 vacuums for every 1 forceps. Vacuums are kinder to the pelvic floor and result in less severe tears.
Otherwise I've almost done as many vaginal breech deliveries as forceps in the last 30 months which is a stat probably unique among obstetricians these days.
The unassisted vaginal birth rate also compares well with any unit looking after high risk and low risk obstetrics.
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