Ask 10 different obstetricians what the optimal cesarean delivery rate is and you’ll likely get 10 different answers. But there is widespread agreement that 32.2 percent, the U.S. average in 2014, is too high. Way too high in light of research out Tuesday that finds no benefit in preventing death for the mother or infant when C-section rates rise above approximately 19 percent.
The findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, are based on 2012 mortality rates from the 194 World Health Organization (WHO) member countries. There’s a dramatic range, from South Sudan where just 0.6 percent of deliveries were by C-section, to Brazil where the rate was 55.6 percent.
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