The rate of births by Caesarean section in the US has climbed to an all-time high, despite efforts by public health authorities to bring down the number of such deliveries, the government said today.
Nearly 1.2 million sections were performed in 2004, accounting for 29.1% of all births that year, the National Centre for Health Statistics reported. That is up from 27.5 per cent in 2003 and 20.7 per cent in 1996.
The increase is attributed to fears of malpractice lawsuits if a vaginal delivery goes wrong, the preferences of mothers and physicians, and the risks of attempting vaginal births after Caesareans.
The section rate increased for all births, even those that involved healthy pregnancies and a full-term, single child. In 2000, the government announced a national public health goal of reducing sections for such births to 15% by 2010, but the actual rate now is about 24 per cent and rising.
The government also reported that more than a half-million infants were born preterm - at less than 37 weeks' gestation - in 2004, which is another record. And the proportion of infants with a low birth weight rose to 8.1 per cent in 2004, from 7.9 per cent the year before.
Increases in multiple-foetus pregnancies and in pre-term sections seem to help explain the preterm and low birth weight numbers, said Joyce Martin, an epidemiologist who co-wrote the report.
AP