Women's Health: Planned C-section comes with added risk

Pregnant women who plan to give birth by caesarean section are at higher risk for re-hospitalization after the delivery than those who attempt a vaginal birth, a U.S. study has shown. "The assumption that a planned caesarean is an optimal choice isn't very clearly supported here," says Eugene Declercq of the Boston University School of Public Health. "There are consequences, most notably the higher re-hospitalization rates." Declercq and his team studied more than 244,000 women who were pregnant with a single child and had no previous delivery by caesarean section. Just over 3,300 of these women scheduled a caesarean section, without going through labour and with no medical reason for a caesarean. The rest of the women planned to have a vaginal birth, and either delivered vaginally or attempted labour and then delivered by C-section. All of the births occurred in Massachusetts between 1998 and 2003. The results indicate women who had planned a C-section were more than twice as likely as those who planned a vaginal birth to be re-hospitalized in the first 30 days after delivery. The average costs of planned caesareans were 76 per cent higher than those for a planned vaginal delivery. Declercq says women need to be informed about the added risk of a planned C-section. He adds that these so-called elective caesarean sections are increasing in number, but are still quite rare.