A study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine’s April 30th issue states that improving the knowledge about prenatal care, and engaging hospitals in a review of the number of caesarean section births that were performed, greatly improved the health of the mothers and the babies.

Medical Reasons for Caesarean Births

The main reason that doctors choose to perform a caesarean birth instead of a vaginal delivery is complications during labor. These complications include the baby not moving down into the proper birthing position, the cervix not properly dilating, the heart rate of the baby becoming unstable, when the mother is birthing multiples, when the mother has had a previous caesarean delivery, and when the infant is expected to weigh more than nine and one half pounds.

Why Caesarean Deliveries are performed in Low Risk Pregnancies

Not all caesarean deliveries are actually necessary, and this puts more mothers and babies at risk of birthing complications.

The sad thing is that many of the caesarean deliveries performed in low risk pregnancies happen because of money, or the fear of law suits. Doctors have become so afraid that they will be sued for something that happened during labor and delivery that they rush to the surgical intervention more frequently.

Many hospitals encouraged their labor and delivery doctors to perform more surgical interventions to increase the amount of money the hospital made from each birth. Surgical births cost more, and the mother stays in the hospital for a longer period of time after the birth, which adds more money for the hospital.

The Caesarean Review

Thirty Canadian hospitals took part in the caesarean review. The review had the hospitals record data showing why surgical births were chosen, and to prove that the surgeries were medically necessary, and not performed as a convenience, or to make money.

The hospitals that engaged in the review showed fewer surgical births than hospitals that were not reporting to anyone on the reasons why they were performing surgical deliveries instead of natural births.

Caesarean Complications

Babies who are born via caesarean birth do not get the benefit of moving through the birth canal. When a baby moves through the birth canal, the contracting of the mother’s muscles helps to expel all fluid from their lungs and helps to massage the baby so that when it emerges, it is more likely to take a healthy first breath. Babies born via caesarean section have more breathing complications, more asthma, and more respiratory distress than babies born via vaginal birth.

The mother who has a vaginal birth has fewer complications after delivering than the mothers who have a caesarean. The caesarean moms have higher instances of infection, and complications that are associated with surgeries.

Mothers who have surgical births have to stay in the hospital for longer periods of time and that increases their bills, and their exposure to infectious diseases. The mothers who have vaginal deliveries can often go home a few hours after delivering the baby.