Oluwabamise Fakorede
Continued Increase in Caesarian Deliveries in the United States
Healthcare consumers and their families are sometimes faced with choices of what method of birth to undergo for an expectant mother. This decision is confounded by the many costs and benefits of the options presented and procedures, how complicated the pregnancy is and the cultural norms that these consumers ascribe to. There is also the notion that doctors (healthcare providers) take advantage of uninformed patients (healthcare consumers) to shore up unnecessary costs leading to overtreatment and increased healthcare costs.
According to Consumer Reports, researchers have estimated that almost 50% of caesarean sections performed in the US are done in situations where the babies could have been born through vaginal birth. C-sections have been found to be the most common surgeries performed in the US and one out of every three babies born in the US are delivered through this method (Haelle, 2016). The rate of C-sections in the US in the 1970 was 6% and has since jumped to 32% in 2013 which is double the rate of 15% recommended by the World Health Organization (Almendrala, 2015). This increase has led to concerns about the resulting consequences on maternal and infant mortality and is stipulated to be higher than it is medically necessary. Although women have been found to opt for this method even when there is no medical need for one, doctors have also been found to use this method out of convenience. Several of these convenient reasons include avoiding litigation, as out of all forms of medical specialties, obstetricians pay some of the highest malpractice insurance premiums because of the increasing rate of recurring birth-related lawsuits (Hartocollis, 2014). A C-section takes twenty minutes compared to an average of twelve hours for a vaginal birth. According to a Federal study that did an analysis on birth certificates, it was found that the...