ICAN Statement of Beliefs
We, the International Cesarean Awareness Network, Inc., believe that:
1. The cesarean section rate remains at an alarmingly higher rate than the 15% average recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO estimates that half (50%) of all cesarean sections performed in the United States are unnecessary.
2. When a cesarean is necessary, it can be a lifesaving technique for both mother and baby, and worth the risks involved. With half the cesareans being performed deemed unnecessary by WHO, the risks these mothers and babies are exposed to are avoidable and costly.
3. In most cases VBAC is safe for both mother and infant. A repeat cesarean should never be considered routine– it is major abdominal surgery with many risks.
4. Birth is a normal physiological process. Given sincere emotional support, real education, and an honest opportunity, 90-95% of women can deliver vaginally, joyfully, as nature intended.
5. Women have the right to accurate information regarding nutrition and risks of drugs during pregnancy and labor. Poor nutrition, smoking, alcohol, and medications taken during pregnancy and labor often affect the infant's well-being and contribute to unnecessary cesareans.
6. Women have the right to the information necessary for using medical technology and procedures judiciously. The misuse of technology has fostered the high cesarean rate. Women have the right to know what tests are being performed, the side effects of such tests, the right to decline any procedures. Informed consent is not a privilege, it is a right of all birthing women.
7. Women must be allowed to express all their birth related feelings in a safe and supportive environment. The emotions of a pregnant and birthing woman have profound effects on the birth outcome.
8. Patient-choice cesareans are unethical and immoral on the part of physician. Women are not being fully informed of the risks of this option in childbirth, and therefore make decisions based on cultural myth and fear surrounding childbirth.
9. We as women must now assume more responsibility for our own bodies and births. At stake are our babies, our bodies, and our futures.
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History of ICAN
In June 1982, Esther Booth Zorn — widely recognized as the country's leading voice in a growing chorus to reduce the nation's high cesarean rate — conceived the Cesarean Prevention Movement (CPM) at her dining room table with Liz Belden Handler. Zorn is credited for bringing the issue to national prominence — and for successfully challenging the long-held "once a cesarean, always a cesarean" dictum that for years has been regarded as gospel.
ICAN has never opposed medically necessary surgical births that save lives. But medical experts, Zorn says, estimate that almost half of the cesareans performed in the United States each year are not medically necessary.
Just two years after founding CPM, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued guidelines promoting vaginal births after previous cesareans. Four years later, ACOG issued another set of guidelines aimed at dismantling the old "once a cesarean, always a cesarean" rule.
In 1992, the Cesarean Prevention Movement changed its name to International Cesarean Awareness Network, Inc. (ICAN) to reflect a more positive statement. Esther Zorn stepped down as executive director of ICAN in 1994 to pursue another career. Zorn partly attributes the nation's high cesarean rate to "our technological, appointment-book society," which makes both doctors and women impatient with the slow process of labor and delivery.
At its most basic level, the war Zorn has waged aims to put childbirth decisions back into the hands of the women experiencing it. Zorn has had such an impact on people regarding childbirth, that it gives women the courage and strength that impacts all corners of their lives.
Now, 20 years later, ICAN continues to carry the torch lit by Esther Booth Zorn. With chapters all over the United States,Canada, and Mexico, ICAN continue to strive for the rights of women to birth safely, as they choose. Their goal is still an uphill battle. With new ACOG guidelines once again turning back to some of the old ways, ICAN has its work cut out for them for a long time to come.
Today, the organization is credited with sparking a successful movement to increase the number of vaginal birth after cesareans (VBACs). We sincerely appreciate your desire to strengthen ICAN's role in helping women, and we welcome you to a team of supportive and encouraging women, known as the International Cesarean Awareness Network.
