C-sections rise by 65 per cent in India's private hospitals

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GAYATRI ARORA

01 March, 2011

Unwarranted C-sections pose a serious health problem to mothers and their children. A recent WHO study reveals that the number of C-sections have risen dramatically all over India with more women..

AN ONGOING World Health Organisation (WHO) survey has revealed that despite advances in obstertic care, elective caesarean sections pose an increased risk to both mother and child.

The survey, which was recently published in the medical journal Lancet, found that one in five childbirths in India utilise the surgical option, which can cause major complications.

Although that amounts to only 18 per cent of all deliveries occuring via C-section. This is still over the WHO prescribed 15 per cent limit. A significant detail emergin from the study is that the increase of such births has increased from 5 per cent to 65 per cent in private hospitals.

What is alarming is that according to the WHO, this increase in not due to medical neccessity but is rather motivated by the fact that C-sectons are more profitable for doctors and hospitals.

A combination of factors could be to blame for the rise in C-sections. While doctors are often guilty of recommending C-Sections when there is no medical need for one, mothers also regard a caesarean delivery as painless way of having a baby.

However, expectant parents must be made aware that a caesarean delivery is not a harmless option and that like all surgery, it carries a risk to mother and child.

Indeed the report in Lancet indicates that the women who undergo a caesarean without requiring it, were, at times more likely to be admitted to intensive care compared to those who give birth normally.The risks of hysterectomy and maternal and infant mortality were also greater.

Unfortunately it would be impossible to formulate policy that could successfully separate bogus C-section remmendation from those that are medically required.

Medical ethics frequires that doctors should provide more comprehensive information to expectant mothers about what their options are. That can be buttressed by greater awareness among patients.

In the West, there's a pro-natural birth movement among expectant mothers. There needs to be a similar grounds as well here. Greater questioning of the need for C-sections would also lead to obstertricians offering different sections.

Studies have shown that in a developing country where resources are scarce, a large numbers of C-sections that are not medicallly indicated could represent a serious resource drain that could weaken material and neo-natal health care.

This is because money, medical practitioners and equipment are diverted away from cases in which they can actually be used to help expectant mothers and children who really require such equipment.