It's time to debunk the myth of too posh to push

So goodbye Lord Young, Tory peer and David Cameron's enterprise adviser, who resigned after claiming Britons "never had it so good". For most, he was plain wrong; for others, his cry of: "Let them eat quails' eggs" was just bad timing.

A study commissioned by price comparison website uSwitch found that there is now a vogue among the relatively well-off for boasting about how "poor" they are. So skiing holidays are replaced with rented cottages in Dorset. Meals out are substituted with takeaways. Gym memberships with jogging in the park, perhaps followed by lunges holding own-brand baked bean cans. We get the picture. Adopt Marks & Spencer voiceover: "This isn't just poverty — this is middle-class, competitive faux-poverty."

It would appear we've gone from downsizing to what can only be termed as downbragging: "We're really struggling — I can't remember our last Ocado delivery." "Well, this season's Boden catalogue went straight into the bin." Cue the tiniest, squeakiest violins in the world. Let's face it, we're unlikely to see Oxfam launching an appeal on the back of middle-class "suffering" any time soon ("James and Laura don't know if their children can carry on with their clarinet lessons"). But not to worry — these downbragging crazes never last.

Does anyone else recall the "caring 1990s", which were a reaction to the "I don't give a stuff" 1980s? All those earnest types wafting around in vegetable-dyed clothing and being downsize-this and flexi-that? Then something happened (probably the iMac) and the non-materialistic outlook was instantly discarded. I predict this vogue for downbragging will only last as long as people feel they can hold out for an iPad. If Lord Young had kept his mouth shut just a bit longer, he could have survived.

"Poo doctor" Gillian McKeith is a pain on <I'm a Celebrity>. Former Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder looks ready to snort her. After her theatrical swooning fit, during a "buried alive" trial, it was difficult to work out whether medics were rushing forward with oxygen or an Oscar.

However, if McKeith is vegan, then why is everyone ridiculing her for refusing to eat crocodile penises et al for the bushtucker trials? With vegans, it makes no difference if it is an alligator's eye or a humble chipolata — an animal product is an animal product and they cannot be expected to eat it.

The derision aimed at McKeith reeks of hypocrisy. Someone whose restricted diet derives from religious beliefs would be admired for sticking to their principles — the jungle would resound with PC applause. Yet it's acceptable to mock people who refuse meat through personal choice.

How difficult would it be for the IAC production team to rustle up, if not entirely non-animal-derived, at least meat-free alternatives? Kangaroo poo? Koala snot? Oh, the possibilities! Even Gordon "veggie hater" Ramsay's Ptrus restaurant has a vegetarian menu — what's stopping <I'm a Celebrity>?

You've got to love the phrase "too posh to push" for its sheer woman-hating absurdity. It conjures the image of a spoilt damsel in a floaty dress, reclining on a chaise longue, haughtily declining to go into natural labour on the grounds that it might sully her petticoat.

Certainly it does not conjure the reality of a Caesarean. I've undergone natural birth and an emergency Caesarean and while neither was "transcendent", the latter was a nightmare. Needles into the spine, scary numbness, grotesque "rummaging" — as if you are starring in a remake of Alien — stitches, staples, increased risk of infection, longer recovery removal of staples. At no point do I recall smugly thinking: "This is the life. I bet every expectant mother would like to have it this good."

More C-sections

I remembered all this reading the latest statistics from the National Health Service Information Centre. Three times as many babies are born by C-section compared with 30 years ago. A quarter of expectant mothers have it, compared with 9 per cent in the 1980s.

Not only is there a wildly different quality of antenatal care but Caesareans are twice as common in affluent, middle-class areas.

This information all seems to point to the fact that while women are getting wussier about the vaginal delivery gig, those who are too posh to push aren't too posh to push their luck. Really? Almost buried in statistics apparently bent on proving the increasing gestational bone-idleness of women is the fact that less than half of Caesareans in 2009 were planned.

The majority was carried out because of unforeseen complications. Suddenly, we are left with a much smaller number of women who could be accused of being too posh to push.

Of the "elective" Caesareans, one presumes a fair few were requested by either older mothers, who are statistically more likely to have childbirth difficulties, or those who've had previous bad experiences.

Not that simple

Then there would be those who feel frightened and nervous and, perhaps deluded, hope that an elective Caesarean will be simpler. Those too-posh-to-push numbers are shrinking all the time, aren't they?

I won't bother going into the medical evidence provided by celebrity magazines, gushing about the likes of Posh Spice demanding their "easy lunchtime Caesareans". I'm not even sure that those who request Caesareans should be branded Lady Mucks with a hoity-toity refusal to engage with their birth canals. Perhaps the real problem is that many less affluent women are not "posh" enough and informed and confident enough to demand the Caesareans they might actually prefer.

Cutting through the waffle, Caesareans are chiefly frowned upon because they cost the healthcare systems more money. This is the real reason why childbirth is the one procedure in modern times that comes with absurd moral pressure to try to do it without full medical assistance and pain relief.

Never mind that all medical procedures would be "cheaper", if all that were done to make the patient more comfortable is stick a piece of wood between their teeth to bite down on.

Indeed, the too-posh-to-push woman appears to be an urban myth, a misogynistic phantom, conveniently deployed every time a government messes up.

It is clear that while Caesareans have increased, so the circumstances leading to them have changed. Anyway, if women, for whatever reason, opt for a Caesarean, perhaps we should give them some respect. These are strange times indeed if a blade plunged through the abdomen is mocked as an easy option.