�New York City's cesarean delivery section charge per unit has increased by 24% over the past six years to an average of nearly 31%, and rates are on the rise at nearly every single city hospital, according to new data released by Choices in Childbirth, a New York-based nonprofit that deeds to enable women to make fully informed pregnancy decisions. Most city hospitals are not addressing the potential causes of the increase in c-section rates.
The new data includes a crack-up of cesarean rates at every hospital in all five boroughs, demonstrating the change from 2000 to 2006, and is included in the new 2008-09 edition of Choices in Childbirth's annual New York Guide to a Healthy Birth. In Manhattan, the c-section rate increased by 29%, to an average rate of 30%; in Staten Island, it increased by 20% to an average rate of 34%; in Queens, it increased by 27% to an average rate of 33%; in Brooklyn, it increased by 26% to an average rate of 32%; and in the Bronx, it increased by 28% to an average rate of 26%. This follows statewide trends, where the rates of obstetrical interventions (including c-sections, inductions, episiotomies, epidurals, and other routine practices) ar continuing to climb despite the sack of multiple studies indicating the penury for moderation.
The U.S. c-section rate for 2006 is 31%, an step-up of 41% since 2000. This reflects a steady increase every year of the past decade-and New York's rising rates offer a microcosm of the national trend. The World Health Organization recommends that the cesarian rate for industrialized nations should not exceed 15%. A safe range, as determined by WHO experts, is 10-15%-well below New York City's average pace.
"Certainly in that location are multiplication when a c-section offers women, their families and healthcare providers a necessary and lifesaving birthing root," said Elan McAllister, chair and cofounder of Choices in Childbirth. "However this alarming citywide increase underscores how cesarian section has become a method of convenience rather than necessity, even though it can present tremendous risks for an expecting mother. Just as alarming, our city's hospitals have no strategy to reduce the rate. We urge families and the medical residential area to think back that the highest layer of medical intervention is not ever required, and is not necessarily the safest option for the mother and child."
Cesarean section is a major surgical process that increases the likeliness of many risks for mothers and babies in comparison with vaginal birth. The caesarian section rate in New York City is on the rise for a number of reasons, which english hawthorn include medical care that does non offer the informed choice of vaginal birth, more and more casual attitudes towards surgery and cesarean section surgery, limited awareness of the risks associated with c-section, and provider fears of malpractice and case.
"I'm truly concerned that the c-section rate continues to lift at so many of our city's hospitals," aforementioned New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum. "We're making some positive strides, as New York's hospitals are lastly complying with the legal requirement to release this data. However, there's much more crop to be done to ensure that women receive the best and most medically conquer care, and that hospitals take potent steps towards reducing the c-section pace. Information is essential - especially when you're transaction with the health of mothers and children. This is why I have introduced lawmaking which will require the city to create an online database to take into account mothers to find hospital information quickly and well, and serve them make safe, informed decisions."
Two myths persist about the increase in c-section rates. First, that more women are requesting the procedure. However, a national appraise by Childbirth Connection set up just one incidence in 1,600 of a planned cesarean, for no underlying medical reason. The second myth, that the increase in c-section charge per unit is a reflection of the increase in vaginal birth among aged women world Health Organization may accept more patronise complications, is similarly unfounded. Cesarean section rates are going up for all groups of birthing women, regardless of age, the number of babies they are having, socio-economic position, health problems, race/ethnicity, or other criteria.
"The American healthcare system is progressively dependent upon medical interventions to address what is, most often, a normal and dependable physiological sue - natural childbirth - and this new data shows that New York City is mapping to the trend," said Rebecca Benghiat, administrator director of the New Space for Women's Health, a raw women's parentage and health center in New York City. "Quite often, women are non fully informed of the risks associated with unremarkably performed obstetrical interventions, nor do they know in that respect are options beyond hospital birth. However, as New York City women are becoming more aware of the state of standard maternity care in this city, we have seen an unbelievable increase in demand for services outside of the hospital."
"We should be concerned around the long-run risks of having so many women in the United States undergo major abdominal surgery, particularly those who do so when they are young," said Wendy Brooks Barr, MD, MPH, MSCE, research and co-maternity care director, Beth Israel Residency in Urban Family Medicine, Institute for Family Health, and supporter professor of Family and Social Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University. "I urge my colleagues and peers crosswise the urban center to be open to innovative means of changing how motherhood care is delivered in New York, and to help educate solutions that work towards reducing the c-section rate."
For a copy of the new Choices in Childbirth 2008-09 New York City Guide to a Health Birth, to access 2000-2006 caesarean delivery section statistics and to view the rates of other obstetrical interventions for hospitals in the New York Metro area, delight visit hypertext transfer protocol://www.choicesinchildbirth.org.
About Choices in ChildbirthAt Choices in Childbirth, our mission is to improve motherliness care by providing the public, specially childbearing women and their families, with the information necessary to make in full informed decisions relating to how, where, and with whom they will give birth.
Choices in Childbirth
About The New Space for Women's Health, a project of Friends of the Birth CenterThe New Space for Women's Health grew out of the community of the Elizabeth Seton Childbearing Center, which, challenged by insurance demands and increasing costs, closed in 2003. Once open, the center will make an environment where midwives, mental wellness professionals, family educators and a community of other professionals volition provide more than 20,000 women and families each year with prenatal and postpartum care, accouchement education, gynecological services, social work, and psychological care in a welcoming and environmentally sustainable setting.
The New Space for Women's Health
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