Thursday, March 19, 2009

Cesarean rate in U.S. is now at 31.8%

New figures reported by Reuters today show that the 4.3 million babies born in 2007 was the most ever recorded in the United States, topping even the peak of the baby boom in 1957.

It says there was another record high in the cesarean delivery rate too; it rose for an 11th straight year - up 2%, to 31.8% of births.

I think that the figures would be more informative if the cesarean rate was broken down further into different cesarean types and reported as such - e.g. planned cesareans for medical reasons, emergency cesareans, cesareans on maternal request, repeat cesareans etc.

The debate over whether the overall 31.8% figure is too high is meaningless without first doing this.

No comments: