Delivery Room Decisions

June 18, 2007 — -- Think about all the mothers you know, and you probably know someone who had a cesarean section delivery, as roughly one out of three births are now handled this way.

After rates for cesarean sections (or c-sections as they are often called) dipped lower in the mid-1990s, they are now up dramatically in America. The rate of these procedures rose 39 percent from 1994 to 2004, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In fact, it is one of the most common surgeries. Of about 7 million surgical procedures done each year in the U.S., more than 1 million are c-sections.

The World Health Organization has said the ideal rate for c-sections would be about 15 percent of all births. But in this country, final figures for 2004 — the last year for which data is available — show the national rate is nearly 30 percent of all births.

American women have more c-sections than women in the United Kingdom, Canada and many European countries.

So what gives? Why are so many women having c-sections instead of delivering their babies the old fashioned way? It turns out the answer is very complicated. There is no one single reason behind the rising numbers.

A small part of the rise in c-sections has to do with convenience.

Lynn Sheridan-Davis was in labor for 13 painful hours before her first child was born by c-section. After consulting with her doctor, she decided not to try a vaginal birth with her second child, in part because it would simply be easier to have another c-section and avoid all that pain.

"My mom lives in Canada, and I wanted her help. And trying to plan with a 3-year-old at home, it just seemed easier just to do a repeat c-section, so that kind of everything is taken care of," Sheridan-Davis said.

But the convenience of planning a c-section is only a small part of the story.

For a woman like Sheridan-Davis, who has already had one c-section, there is an increased risk to delivering another child vaginally. These days, most women who've had a prior c-section choose to have another with subsequent births.

And, for doctors, the threat of lawsuits also comes into play. Obstetricians are among the most vulnerable to litigation if something goes wrong in the delivery room. Choosing to perform a c-section, in some cases, can help reduce the possibility of being sued.