Personal account my wife just could not dilate so emergency C section it was. And then the doctors just said do a C for the next 3 children because the lack of dilation will likely happen again.
The downside is your body can only take so many C sections. After the 4th, the doctor told my wife to stop having children.
It is surgery, so it is not something to do lightly. There is a personal risk to the mother always.
Doctors should know better than to say that. Bodies do different things with different deliveries. My first was a 10 lb. C-section baby (I didn't get past 5 dilation) the next three were regular sized babies delivered naturally.