Demi
Tue, Feb-27-07, 12:48
The Daily Telegraph
London, UK
27 February, 2007
Obese women force up rate of caesarean births
Overweight women (in the UK) are driving up the number of babies born by caesarean section, which stands at almost one in four of all births, statisticians said yesterday.
Being overweight or obese increases the risks of problems in labour and caesarean rates show no sign of declining.
In 1995 the rate was 16.6 per cent and last year it was up to 23.2 per cent.
At the same time obesity in women has become much more common, with 21 per cent of women obese compared with 16.5 per cent in 1995.
The Office of Health Economics (OHE), which published its annual Compendium of Health Statistics yesterday, said that each caesarean delivery cost the NHS twice as much as a normal birth.
The health service could save £1 million for every 800 caesareans compared with births that are normal and uncomplicated.
Emma Hawe, the head statistician at the OHE, said there were several reasons for the rise in caesareans but it was not likely that women who are "too posh to push" were causing the increase.
"Our figures show that the numbers of elective caesareans has levelled off while the number of emergency caesareans has continued to increase," she said.
Elective caesareans, as a proportion of deliveries went down from 9.6 to 9.4 per cent between 2004 and 2005 while emergency caesareans went up from 13.3 to 13.8 per cent.
A rise in the number of older women giving birth did not necessarily account for the increase in caesarean births, she said.
"In the Netherlands and Finland where women are also having babies at an older age, caesarean rates are much lower."
The rate in Finland is 16.1 per cent and in the Netherlands it is 13.6 per cent.
Another reason for the increase is that doctors are afraid of litigation, according to a survey conducted in 2000. But the most commonly cited causes are "foetal distress and "failure to progress".
Prof James Walker, of St James's University Hospital, Leeds, and spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said he now expected to see one woman a week in the labour ward who was grossly obese.
"It causes problems. If you have a young slim woman in her 20s the probability is that she with have a normal, uncomplicated birth. If the woman is older and obese the probability is she will not.
"There are more difficulties in assessing the labour, in knowing where the baby is and hearing its heart beat".
Prof Walker said that overweight women also tended to have bigger babies and that internal fat could restrict the passage of the baby.
"We have to have bigger delivery beds and operating tables. The effects of being obese accumulate," he said.
Women gain about 26lb during pregnancy of which 8½lb was body fat. "One of the problems is that women do not lose this weight between pregnancies. We need to encourage them to get back into shape, after the baby, by breast feeding, taking exercise or dieting," he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/27/nbirths127.xml
London, UK
27 February, 2007
Obese women force up rate of caesarean births
Overweight women (in the UK) are driving up the number of babies born by caesarean section, which stands at almost one in four of all births, statisticians said yesterday.
Being overweight or obese increases the risks of problems in labour and caesarean rates show no sign of declining.
In 1995 the rate was 16.6 per cent and last year it was up to 23.2 per cent.
At the same time obesity in women has become much more common, with 21 per cent of women obese compared with 16.5 per cent in 1995.
The Office of Health Economics (OHE), which published its annual Compendium of Health Statistics yesterday, said that each caesarean delivery cost the NHS twice as much as a normal birth.
The health service could save £1 million for every 800 caesareans compared with births that are normal and uncomplicated.
Emma Hawe, the head statistician at the OHE, said there were several reasons for the rise in caesareans but it was not likely that women who are "too posh to push" were causing the increase.
"Our figures show that the numbers of elective caesareans has levelled off while the number of emergency caesareans has continued to increase," she said.
Elective caesareans, as a proportion of deliveries went down from 9.6 to 9.4 per cent between 2004 and 2005 while emergency caesareans went up from 13.3 to 13.8 per cent.
A rise in the number of older women giving birth did not necessarily account for the increase in caesarean births, she said.
"In the Netherlands and Finland where women are also having babies at an older age, caesarean rates are much lower."
The rate in Finland is 16.1 per cent and in the Netherlands it is 13.6 per cent.
Another reason for the increase is that doctors are afraid of litigation, according to a survey conducted in 2000. But the most commonly cited causes are "foetal distress and "failure to progress".
Prof James Walker, of St James's University Hospital, Leeds, and spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said he now expected to see one woman a week in the labour ward who was grossly obese.
"It causes problems. If you have a young slim woman in her 20s the probability is that she with have a normal, uncomplicated birth. If the woman is older and obese the probability is she will not.
"There are more difficulties in assessing the labour, in knowing where the baby is and hearing its heart beat".
Prof Walker said that overweight women also tended to have bigger babies and that internal fat could restrict the passage of the baby.
"We have to have bigger delivery beds and operating tables. The effects of being obese accumulate," he said.
Women gain about 26lb during pregnancy of which 8½lb was body fat. "One of the problems is that women do not lose this weight between pregnancies. We need to encourage them to get back into shape, after the baby, by breast feeding, taking exercise or dieting," he said.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/27/nbirths127.xml