Too posh to push?

Would you rather have your child by natural birth or caesarean section? If your choice is caesarean, then you are part of the rising number of women who are shunning natural birth. More women are now going for C-section as a form of delivery as opposed to a medically induced process.

The total of number of women who are now using caesarean section (C-Section) to deliver babies globally has doubled since year 2000.

This has been revealed in a new study that was conducted by 20 universities and health institutions, and led by Dr Marleen Temmerman, of the Aga Khan University, Kenya.

From 2000 to 2015, the number of children that were born through C-Section worldwide increased by 3.7 per cent each year. This saw the total number of C-Sections rise from 16 million to 131.9 million.

During this period, live births increased from 29.7 million to 140.6 million. The study also established that against the high number of caesarean births, only about 10 per cent of births require surgical intervention. This rise was attributed to more births taking place at hospitals and a greater frequency of intervention through C-section in hospitals.

“The large increases in C-section use for non-medical purposes are concerning because of the associated risks for women and children. C-sections can create complications and side effects for mothers and babies,” said Dr. Temmerman.

The use of C-section was highest in South Asia with a 6.1 per cent annual growth and lowest in the Sub-Saharan Africa with a 2 per cent growth per year.

Nonetheless, C-section use in Eastern Africa was on the rise with an annual growth of 4.6 per cent. It was highest in Southern Africa where an annual growth of 6.2 per cent was recorded annually.

“The caesarean procedure is also overused in many middle and high income settings, while it remains highly unavailable or unaffordable among women in low-income settings,” the study said. For example, wealthiest women were six times more likely to have a C-section in comparison to the poorest women.

Also, C-sections were 1.6 times more common in private hospitals than public hospitals. It was discovered that women prefer to go for C-section due to past bad vaginal birth experiences, fear of labour, effects of labour such as pelvic floor damage, urinary incontinence, and reduced quality of sexual functioning.

This research was part of a Series of three papers that were published in the journal The Lancet. The series tracks trends in C-section use globally and in nine regions based on data from 169 countries from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF databases.