Stats (was: Re: Vaginal Birth After C-section)

[Guest guest]

A great stat site:

http://www.ican-online.org/resources/statistics4.htm

A part of this quote:

Maternal mortality rate - moms that die:

2.8 per 10,000 with a trial of labor

2.4 per 10,000 with an elective cesarean

The risk of a mother dying from a cesarean is small but is still

considerably higher than with a vaginal birth:

Maternal death with cesarean: 4 in 10,000

Maternal death with all vaginal births 1 in 10,000

Maternal death with elective cesareans 2 in 10,000

Maternal death with all normal vaginal births 0.5 in 10,000

That would make it 1 in 2500 die with a cesarean, 1 in 5000 from a

planned cesarean. That *is* considerably lower than my 1 in 200

quote, but I have heard docs use that quote so often I " assumed " it

was correct. I apologize for the misquote/mistake. However, many

states don't even have a place on the death certificate that ask if

the woman had been pregnant within a year of death, so " hidden "

deaths can and do occur. It is one major aspect of reporting

maternal deaths that is often overlooked; many women die and their

deaths are just not attributed to their obstetric state or

procedure. This, I am sure, is where I continuously hear the 1 in

200 statistic from... from those on the inside who go to court to

defend themselves from lawsuits.

An important article here speaks of the whys of cesareans causing

more death than vaginal births:

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0838/2003_May-

June/102791856/p1/article.jhtml

Thanks for asking, Kris... good point made.

Barb Herrera

midwife

San Diego

(3 years post-op in April)