The Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality has revealed some data from a study about caesarean sections that aims to analyze the evolution from 2001 to 2011 in hospitals in Spain. The data shows that the number of caesarean sections practiced in our country has increased almost 10% in the ten years of the study.
If in 2001 the percentage of caesarean sections was 19.9% of all deliveries, in 2011 the percentage reached 21.8%. All of them figures of the deliveries attended in the hospitals of the National Health System. If we add data from private hospitals, and only births with live-born babies are taken into account, the percentage reaches 24.9%.
Rising trend in the number of C-sections
As you can see, the trend is rising, precisely at a time when the vision of the population is, in my view, precisely the opposite. Seven years ago, when my first child was born, everyone had the feeling that caesarean sections were made like churros, and many mothers, probably rightly, were going home thinking that they had made him a non-caesarean section.
Now, in recent years, it is easier to listen to mothers and families to complain about endless births, of those of "come, calm down, that you are doing well, that it takes you because you are first time" expressing that "as now you do not make a C-section until there is no other choice ... "
And it is true, because the figures sometimes deceive us. I explain. In 2001 the percentage was 19.9%. In 2011 the percentage was 21.8%, but it is that in 2007 it became 22.2%, being the year that more caesarean sections were practiced in proportion. Since that year, and probably with the new protocols, things have improved discreetly, it is struggling to "naturalize" births and avoid instrumentalization and trying to avoid caesarean sections if they are not strictly necessary.
Although be careful, let's not let our guard down and don't pretend to see it all multicolored in a field of flowers with a blue sky without pollution. In 4 years, from 2007 to 2011 only the percentage of caesarean sections has been lowered by 1.8%, still far from getting even close to the figures of 2001, since, I insist, seeing the global number has increased by almost 10%.
The increase in caesarean sections in public hospitals in the ten years studied is confirmed with data collected by the OECD, which contains the births of both public and private hospitals. According to these data, in 2001 the total cesarean section amounted to 22.4% of all deliveries with live-born babies and in 2011 the percentage is 24.9% commented.
Well it will be necessary, right?
Of course, times change, so do the customs of the population, and in the same way that the number of premature births has increased due to pollution, the pace of life we lead, stress, food and to know how many more factors, it is it is possible that the way of giving birth has also changed, there are more complicated deliveries and it is normal for caesarean sections to increase, right?
Well, it can be and it may not be. Perhaps the ideal is to see how they are in other countries. In Italy, 37.7% are caesarean, although I do not know if it counts because what they are doing there is a real nonsense in order to get more money, since it is billed more with a caesarean section than with a normal delivery. In Hungary, 33.4% of births end in caesarean section, Poland 29.9%, Austria 28.3% and, already below, France, with 20.2%, Sweden with 16.1% and Finland with 14.7%.
These data show that the figures are not so bad, because the thing could be worse, or dramatic as in Italy, but that they could be better, like the northern countries where we have a few years of advantage, also in this.
According to the Ministry the number of caesarean sections is an indicator of good practice. The lower the rate, the better the pregnancy control is considered and the better the assistance to a woman at the time of delivery. However, he considers that this increase may be due more to the way of attending births than to actual complications in births: "The rate can be linked more to clinical practice styles than to comorbidities or complications of patients" . Come on, who believe that it is due more to decisions of doctors than to real needs. A relief (and I speak ironically).
Hopefully the data will continue to decline in future studies, since to have all the information we would have to know what happened in 2012 and 2013. WHO, which is very restrictive in this area, considers that in Spain too many caesarean sections are being done for years. According to what they say, what is expected in a developed country is that complications occur in 5-10% of births, reaching some 15% acceptable, which, as we have seen, only in northern European countries are able To see closely.
