42% of UK births are c-sections

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Is anyone else surprised at this statistic? I’m sure it was only something like 20% when my now-teen was born.

Although I had noticed how so many of my friends/family members/colleagues having babies recently all seem to have had cesareans.

It looks as though the shift will only continue so potentially c-section will exceed 50% of births and be the more common mode of birth in a few years.

I think it’s really interesting! Will there be drive to try and push numbers down and increase vaginal births again? Or will it eventually become standard for most women to just book in for an elective section as standard and ‘attempting natural’ will be seen as a more unusual choice like home birth is currently.

My daughter crossed every box for a non intervention birth ie early 30s,non smoker,easy first birth,gym goer until 37weeks ,,normal gentle labour and at the 11th hour it all went wrong! Baby born with Apgar of. 1 at 3 mins ,5 at 10 mins and 9 at 14 mins ,he finally breathed after 19 mins ..longest 19 mins of our lives! .Full crash team there within seconds ,If he had been born at home he would have died because absolutely no way would he have been given the help In time .

I don't know, I haven't asked many 😝
Though from previous threads on here, I think earlier can be more common with elective sections, though there's huge variation.

I honestly couldn't believe how quickly I bounced back from my sections though. I know I was probably lucky. I was the quickest to recover out of my NCT (only elective section) and the only one that wasn't at least a bit traumatised by labour/birth.

If a woman wants to go for vaginal birth, then she should be empowered to do so. I'm just not that brave.

The Obstetrician workforce in the NHS increased by 5% since 2014/15 to 2024/25, at period where they’ve seen c-section workload double according to NHS England data.

What have these doctors stopped doing to accommodate this extra work? Or were they twiddling their thumbs before?

Ah but this after elective c-sections, right? I was referring to bouncing back and being ready to have sex again 4 weeks after vaginal birth - I had never heard of that and was impressed by PP.

@Crushed23 I don't think being ready to have sex again quickly after birth is top of the priority list for the vast majority of new mothers, tbh.

I never said it was - read the conversation back.

Yes, sections for me. And yes, I've never heard of it either with vaginal births but I guess some might.

It's definitely not the priority, but if mum is up for it and feeling well, then that's fine as well.

Omg there is so much rubbish in this thread. Literally complete made up nonsense and wives tales.

I spent a long time reading on this. The data categorically came out on the side of elective is the best choice for baby and a medium outcome choice for mum.

So that’s what I did. Maternal request. Twice 👌

Theres a slight issue when it comes to a national scale to do with biomes and immunity/ allergies. But that’s nationally. On a per person level it’s not statistically significant. And I breastfed exclusively for 9 months so feel I cancelled that one out.

It's totally tangential, but I was curious and looked it up, and for those who are interested - an Australian study found that:

"[...]older mums took longer to get back into sex. In the 30-34 age group, 40 per cent of woman started having sex again in the first six-week period, compared with 63 per cent of women aged 18-24.

Mums who underwent a caesarean or who had intervention also spent a longer period of time before resuming sexual activity: at six weeks, 45 per cent of women who had a C-section, and 32 per cent who had forceps involved, said they had resumed vaginal sex.

Experiencing an incision or tear in the perineum also lengthened the time before sex started again. Only 32 per cent of women who had had an incision, and 35 per cent who had a tear, had resumed their sex life by six weeks, in comparison to the 60 per cent of women who had no intervention in a normal vaginal birth."

@Psychosislotus Data from where?!!! Are you American?

No I am British. I studied world wide data and nhs data.

@Psychosislotus Same for both. Different conclusion reached.

Sure. I have read some of your comments. They don’t sound measured or scientific 😂

They were in fact some of the nonsense I was referring to

@Psychosislotus Nonsense according to you. Not according to reliable sources such as RCOG and many, many others.

There’s 11 pages here and you have been yapping away from page 1 so I don’t have time to go and debunk all your nonsense.

I am here as a C mum. It’s a completely valid choice, a becoming quite popular one now due to the increased education and awareness of women and availability of information.

@Psychosislotus You don't agree with the WHO then, as just one example?
The global C-section rate is approximately 21.1%, exceeding the World Health Organization (WHO)’s recommended 10-15% "ideal" rate to reduce maternal and infant mortality.

No I don’t agree with the WHO.

You know there’s looking at stats on a population level and there’s applying that to you as an individual. Do you understand that?

Being dead is a pretty low bar for a successful outcome. I pretty much assumed neither of us would be dead so went up to the next layer of likely outcomes, compared and so forth until I made my decision.

And that data you are reading in itself is also nonsense. C sections save lives. It’s literally what they do as last chance saloon when everything hits the fan. The data you are taking at face value you haven’t looked at properly because it includes all c’s. Including nearly dead mothers and babies. They automatically become the c group.

If you actually compare outcomes from planned section and planned to give birth vaginally (even if they end up in section). Then for most groups of mothers and babies it’s a hands down win to the C.

Statistics are complicated. But if in doubt and you are getting a bit confused then just ask your OB consultant how they gave birth. Most of them will say C

What makes you think your vagina is not on display during a c-section? Of course it is! Maybe not the whole time but probably need a catheter I imagine? Don’t they need to manage blood loss too? You won’t be fully covered at all times as I’m sure they’d need access ?

@Psychosislotus I've never had need for an OB Consultant; none of my pregnancies were high risk.
Although I chose to avoid the NHS entirely as so many of their maternity services are simply unsafe.

And you said you are in the UK?!

Rule no1. Is you never go private here.

That’s the most unsafe thing you can do for your birth and baby in this country.

I have no idea how old you are or what your story is but you are completely ill informed to be preaching about this stuff on here.

On that note I am off because I am seriously doubting your authenticity at this point.

To any mums reading considering options - just do your research. Goodluck

@Psychosislotus You have SERIOUSLY never heard of an Independent Midwife (IM)?
You've got to be pulling my chain!!!
45 BTW 😀

So you had a home birth with a private midwife?

Well there you go. That’s the perfect example of the stats national vs personal.

On a national level outcomes can be excellent statistically for home births. However at individual level it’s practically Russian roulette and I personally would not consider that as an option for putting the safety of my baby first.

@Psychosislotus
Ah so now you do know about them?
Yes. Far, far better than any NHS care I'd received for my other two.
"For low-risk, healthy, second-or-subsequent pregnancies, planned home births with qualified midwives are generally as safe as hospital births."

I felt more exposed during my c section, frankly, as there was a whole team there eyeing me up while I was naked from the waist down and totally numb, with a screen in the way so I didn't know what was happening. I have to assume they do try to cover you up somewhat, but frankly as the incision is quite low on the pubis and they need to do quite a lot of tugging and jostling to get the baby out (or that was the case for me at least!) I have to think you're probably not well covered!

Whereas with my vaginal birth, only my husband and one midwife saw anything.

Although during any sort of birth, I suppose dignity goes out the window a bit, and it didn't really bother me.

Sorry you had a bad time with NHS. And glad your private home birth went well.

But I don’t consider that safe.

Anyway I do think you should wind your neck in on here. C mums don’t go on home birth threads shouting about how reckless they are being. So you shouldn’t really be trying to dominate a discussion around Cs. Especially when you have effectively opted out of the nhs system with privilege that others do not have.

Anyways night. It’s 2am. Sleep time