According to MSNBC, government scientists report that birth by C-Section will continue to increase, citing a study into the causes of a trend that may trouble maternal health experts. Researchers with the National Institutes of Health found that nearly one third of first-time moms deliver by C-section. A lead author of a study, Dr. Jun Zhang, researched 230,000 deliveries in 19 nationwide hospitals. Dr. Zhang reported the findings were surprising, especially that doctors found a woman who had already had a cesarean birth will always have a repeat c-section.
The study referenced hospital policy to always repeat c-sections, also suggesting a link between chemically induced labor and higher chances of c-section. Women who had their labor induced were twice as likely to have a cesarean. It is unclear if medication or forcing Mother Nature to deliver a child had an effect on higher surgical deliveries.
Medical experts argue that cesarean deliveries are an over treatment in procedures and tests that provide little or no benefit while subjecting patients to additional health risks. A surgery carries its own risk of infection and medical errors, with experts arguing vaginal births are safer even for women who have had a first c-section.
Since the mid-1990s, the c-section rate in the U.S. increased by more than 50 percent. Some of it may be to prevent medical malpractice and other lawsuits, experts claim. In Scandinavian countries, surgical deliveries hover at 20 percent range with no evidence of ill-effects to mothers or babies.