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Choosing Caesarean; The pluses and minuses of such a delivery.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Christian Toto, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Twenty years ago, an obstetrician wouldn't allow a pregnant patient to schedule a Caesarean delivery. Doctors only resorted to the surgical procedure in the case of a complicated birth.

Today, with advances in anaesthesia, antibiotics and surgical techniques, some mothers are opting for Caesarean births without even trying to give birth in the traditional manner.

That change in thinking is one reason Caesarean, or "C-section" deliveries are now performed in the United States in nearly one out of every four births.

Dr. Bruce Flamm, an obstetrician at Kaiser Permanente Medical Centers in Riverside, Calif., says "Caesareans on demand" bespeak a seismic shift in both medical advances and the public's perception of a surgery that meant a death sentence for turn-of-the-20th-century moms.

The numbers bear him out.

According to a Feb. 12 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, Caesarean birth rates increased for the fourth year in a row in 2000 to nearly 23 percent of all births, the highest percentage since 1989.

The increase represented a 4 percent jump in the rate of primary Caesarean deliveries and a 12 percent drop in the number of vaginal births after previous Caesareans, known as VBACs. Recently, doctors have reported complications with VBAC deliveries,...

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