international c-section rates

[zimmee]

I have been looking around for the international c-section rates. I have looked on WHO and ICAN among others. I was hoping someone here has the link already. Thanks!

[Mom2baldie]

Have you looked on www.vbac.com? They might have the info you need...

[Storm Bride]

In the course of trying to find those figures, I got a shock...I found old posts on ob-gyn.net about trying to cut down on the c-section rate. An OB on there was objecting to a 15% rate, by saying it was too high. He claims an 8% rate. Of course, this was 1996 - all the recent posts I've read there seem to think that cesareans are god's gift to all women and babies. :irked:

[stafl]

excuse the copy and paste, this is what I posted somewhere else (easier than googling for the info)

Infant mortality rates
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-B/hea_inf_mor_rat
US ranks 41st. That means 40 countries have lower infant mortality rates than we do, with all our "advanced medical technology"

According to this graph, US is third highest in the world for cesarean rate! Lower than Italy and Australia only. But, it's only taking into account the c/s rate from 2000, which was 21%. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/hea_bir_by_cae_sec

The current c/s rate in the US is over 26%. http://www.ican-online.org/resources/statistics.php

According to this one: http://www.ican-online.org/resources/statistics3.php the only countries with higher cesarean rates were Greece, Italy, and Australia


more info:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5402a5.htm

http://www.who.int/en/

Countries with some of the lowest perinatal mortality rates in the world have cesarean rates under 10%. The World Health Organization says, "Clearly there is no justification in any specific region to have more than 10-15% cesarean section births."

Here's a scary WHO study on maternal morbidity in Latin America, that states the majority (70%) of maternal deaths in those countries were directly caused by obstetrical interventions. http://www.paho.org/english/gov/ce/ce130-16-e.pdf

[dlm194]

Here are the 2003 rates for the US (looks like ICAN's are from 2002).
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr53/nvsr53_09tables.pdf

Apparently the worst place to have a baby is in NJ. It's a wonder I had a c-s. :(

[Mama Coltrane]

Yes, I also have heard ( don't know where ) that 10-15% is a more normal rate of c section. America's rate is awfully high at 26%.