OBJECTIVE To use data from routine sources to compare rates of obstetric intervention in Europe both overall and for subgroups at higher risk of intervention. DESIGN Retrospective analysis of aggregated routine data. SETTING Thirty-one European countries or regions contributing data on mode of delivery to the Euro-Peristat project. POPULATION Births in participating countries in 2010. M...

OBJECTIVES To describe the prevalence and determinants of births by caesarean section in private and public health facilities in underserved communities in South Asia. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SETTING 81 community-based geographical clusters in four locations in Bangladesh, India and Nepal (three rural, one urban). PARTICIPANTS 45,327 births occurring in the study areas between 2005 ...

This cross-sectional study compared cognitive-related variables for caesarean delivery in a private and public hospital in Tehran and assessed their association with maternal preference for delivery mode. A sample of 300 pregnant women in their final trimester of uncomplicated pregnancy was recruited from 1 private and 1 public hospital. They completed the Fear of Pain, Childbirth Attitude and ...

Vaginal birth after caesarean section is the delivery of a baby through the vagina after a previous cesarean delivery. For this to be conducted safely and responsibly emergency obstetric care must be available. To study the different modes of delivery in Dhulikhel Hospital (DH), evaluate the frequency of attempted and successful vaginal birth after caesarean section and, in the VBAC group, to i...

OBJECTIVE To assess the quality and comprehensiveness of the information on caesarean section provided in Brazilian women's magazines. DESIGN Review of articles published during 1988-2008 in top selling women's magazines. SETTING Brazil, one of the countries with the highest caesarean section rates in the world. DATA SOURCES Women's magazines with the largest distribution during the study...

BACKGROUND Caesarean section birth is a frequent mode of delivery worldwide. Several social factors have been demonstrated to be strong predictors of caesarean births. OBJECTIVES To identify possible social predictors of caesarean section births in Italy. METHODS Data for this study were drawn from the Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) survey conducted during year 2005 which comprised...

OBJECTIVE To describe the mode and timing of delivery of twin pregnancies at ≥34 weeks of gestation and their association with perinatal outcomes. DESIGN Secondary analysis of a cross-sectional study. POPULATION Twin deliveries at ≥34 weeks of gestation from 21 low- and middle-income countries participating in the WHO Multicountry Survey on Maternal and Newborn Health. METHODS Descriptive...

OBJECTIVES To determine whether the obstetric pathways leading to caesarean section changed from one decade to another. We also aimed to explore how much of the increase in caesarean rate could be attributed to maternal and pregnancy factors including a shift towards delivery in private hospitals. DESIGN Population-based record linkage cohort study. SETTING New South Wales, Australia. PAR...

BACKGROUND Birth cohort studies in some countries have shown a link between caesarean section and asthma. AIM To determine if there is an association between asthma and delivery via caesarean section in Malaysian children. METHOD This is a case-control study involving 156 children aged 3-15 years old, in a tertiary hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Seventy-eight children with a confirmed ...

BACKGROUND Emerging evidence from a recent pilot universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) programme suggests that the burden of obstetric complications associated with mode of delivery is not limited to maternal and perinatal mortality but may also include outcomes that undermine optimal early childhood development of the surviving newborns. However, the potential pathways for this associatio...