One-Third of All United States Births are by Cesarean Section

According to a survey recently released by the US Health and Human Services (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), one-third of births in the United States were by cesarean section in the year 2005. That’s 1.3 million c-section births in 2005, up from the 800,000 c-section births nationwide in 1995. The report finds that vaginal deliveries among women who gave birth in hospitals declined by 3 percent between 1995 and 2005, and that vaginal births after cesareans (VBACs) dropped by 60 percent over the same decade. The report is based on data from AHRQ’S Healthcare Costs and Utilization Project. AHRQ analyst Anne Elixhauser has been quoted by Congressional Quarterly as saying that the cesarean increase is due, at least in part, to growing risk-aversion among obstetricians. To download the complete report as a PDF, go to http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/annualreport/HAR_2005.pdf