Objective: To find out the preferred and actual mode of delivery of obstetricians’ own children. Design: Cross-sectional survey. Setting: Three Congresses of Gynecology and Obstetrics and four large maternity hospitals in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Population: Physicians who held a specialty degree in gynecology & obstetrics or were trainees in this specialty and worked in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Methods: Prevalence and 95% confidence interval. Main Outcome Measures: Preferred and actual mode of delivery for own children. Results: A total of 465 participants answered the questionnaire in the three Congresses and four maternity hospitals. Seventy six percent (95% CI 71 - 81) of the 262 participants who delivered at least one child had Caesarean for the first child. Seventy two percent (95% CI 68 - 76) claimed they would prefer a vaginal birth for their own children, but only a third of those (34%) delivered vaginally. Conclusions: In a group of well informed, socially privileged and empowered women (especially regarding childbirth decisions), the most common mode of delivery was Caesarean, not the natural vaginal birth. Thus, even for those who want to try and reduce the number of Caesareans, it appears that their success will demand broader strategies, than simply to focus on physicians perversely forcing (or talking into) powerless misinformed women to deliver through C-section; this narrative seems to be wrong, at least in the sample of women in our study. Tweetable Among obstetricians in Rio de Janeiro 76% had a Caesarean for their own children