It is now the most common surgical procedure in American hospitals: one in every three babies in the U.S. now come into the world by Caesarian section. According to a new report released Tuesday from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, the C-section rate rose by 53 percent between 1996 and 2007.
Caesarian sections were once the exception in childbirth, so how did it become so widespread and commonly used? The trend is alarming to some medical professionals, who say C-sections are more likely to cause problems that put the mother in the hospital – and the baby in intensive care.
