April marks Cesarean Awareness Month, a dedicated time to raise awareness about cesarean births and their impact on maternal health. Commonly known as a C-section, a cesarean section involves surgically delivering a baby through incisions in the mother’s abdomen and uterus.
While this procedure can be life-saving in specific cases, concerns have been raised about its potential overuse and effects on maternal and infant health.
Understanding Cesarean Birth Rates:
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported a cesarean birth rate of approximately 32% in the United States in 2019, a rate that has been steadily rising over the past few decades.
- Factors contributing to high cesarean birth rates include medical indications, maternal requests, provider practices, and associations with obesity and maternal age.
Factors Influencing Cesarean Birth Rates:
- Medical indications: cesareans may be necessary for fetal distress, placenta previa, or other complications that endanger the mother or baby.
- Maternal requests: some cesareans are at the mother’s request due to pain concerns, horror stories, not having the proper education, or labor fears.
- Provider practices: varied obstetric practices among healthcare providers and institutions can affect cesarean rates. Many providers are educated on the improper way to provide support to mothers. They may be more comfortable in surgery than actually delivering the baby. This also includes the position that mom may want to deliver baby in.
- Obesity and maternal age: higher cesarean rates are observed in obese women and older mothers.
While cesarean births are crucial in certain situations, they come with risks such as extended maternal recovery, increased surgical complications, and potential impacts on breastfeeding and bonding.
Preventing Unnecessary Cesareans:
- Educate yourself: take childbirth classes to understand labor, coping techniques, and informed decision-making. — Many times, us moms were not exposed to natural childbirth or know anything about childbirth as the generations before us were exposed to cesareans as well or were not allowed to know that a woman was even pregnant.
- Choose supportive providers: pick healthcare providers who respect your birth preferences and value shared decision-making.
- Explore labor support: consider a doula or supportive friend for advocacy during labor.
- Stay active: regular pregnancy exercise can prepare your body for labor and reduce complications. Reach out to a local pelvic floor therapist and a chiropractor for added value in reaching your birth goals.
- Avoid unnecessary interventions: discuss intervention risks and benefits with your provider.
- Seek continuous support: having continuous labor support can decrease cesarean likelihood.
By actively participating in your childbirth journey and collaborating with healthcare providers, us moms can help reduce unnecessary cesarean births and enhance outcomes for ourselves and our babies.
Cesarean Awareness Month emphasizes the importance of comprehending factors affecting cesarean birth rates and empowering mothers to make informed childbirth decisions. Through shared decision-making, labor support, and evidence-based maternity care, we can strive to decrease unnecessary cesarean births and enhance maternal and infant health outcomes.
Resources for education on cesarean births
Optimal Care in Childbirth: The Case for a Physiological Approach
Pages & Pages of Podcast Episodes at Evidence Based Birth
Failure to Progress by Evidence Based Birth
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