In a moment of sarcasm, I glanced across this Cochrane review and rather than experience my normal sigh of relief for Cochrane invoking some sort of common sense in the birth world, all I could think was....

"We needed a study to tell us that major abdominal surgery doesn't prevent anal issues?"

It should be inherently obvious to anyone with a medical degree that a surgery that increases adhesions, hysterectomy and bowel obstructions later in life while increasing the possibility of nicks and cuts during the actual surgery is probably not GOOD for the intestines as a whole and isn't going to have a positive impact on the structures that preserve a woman's continence.

Anyway, read here:

http://www.mdlinx.com/ObGynLinx/newsl-article.cfm/3053865/ZZ6566495150134827269204/?news_id=468

On the other hand, maybe this will hush up the elective cesarean people who keep saying that having a cesarean will keep you from pooping on yourself in later life. And folks, they said that. Seriously. Which really leads me to the conclusion that we are only studying this because someone is trying to prove that cesareans are beneficial in this way in order to convince women that cesareans are beneficial overall.