Private obstetric intervention: good, bad or whatever?

Challenging the assumption that higher rates of intervention provide no benefits for babies

Hardly a week seems to pass in Australia without an article in national newspapers drawing attention to the differences in obstetric intervention rates between private patients cared for by obstetricians and public patients who receive various models of care.1 The reported assumption has consistently been that the higher intervention rates observed in private patients are of no benefit to women or their babies, and possibly cause harm. This opinion has inevitably led to suggestions that federal support for private obstetric care be scaled back and redirected to models of care with lower intervention rates.2