Every third birth by caesarean section

Every third birth by caesarean section

09/27/2014

Even if, in the national average, almost every third woman gives birth to her child by caesarean section, the rate varies greatly in the individual federal states. The lowest cesarean rate in Saxony last year was highest in Saarland.

Leader Saarland - taillight Saxony
Almost every third woman in Germany gives birth to her child by caesarean section. However, there are strong regional differences. Thus, the caesarean section rate in the eastern German states is well below the western countries. As reported by the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden on Friday, the Saarland was at the top with 38.1 percent. In Saxony there were with 23.8 percent the fewest Caesarean section. In relation to the whole of Germany, the proportion of women who gave birth in the hospital via caesarean section in 2013 remained virtually unchanged: 31.8 percent of the total of 661,138 hospital childbearing women born last year gave birth to their children in this way.

The decision for a caesarean section depends, in the estimation of the German Society for Gynecology and Obstetrics (DGGG), above all on obstetricians. The central reason for the regional deviations is that the helpers often decide very differently: „The balance between a natural, vaginal birth and a caesarean section in, for example, a breech or a previous cesarean section birth today leads more often to a caesarean section.“ In general, the risk assessment of parents and doctors has changed. Today, the safety and health of mother and child stand in every situation in the foreground.

Medical reasons can speak for cesarean section
There are other medical reasons that speak against a normal birth, such as a particularly large head circumference of the child, a significantly increased birth weight or acute emergencies due to problems in the child's oxygenation. Differentiation is made between reasons that were already established before birth and complications occurring during childbirth. According to the DGGG, the equipment of the clinic also has an influence: „The lack of availability of fully staffed, ready-to-use birth medicine at night and on weekends may possibly require a decision on cesarean section.“

Fewer and fewer hospitals offer childbirth
„Cesarean section“, the medical term for cesarean section, is derived from the Roman emperor Julius Caesar, who according to the writer Pliny was said to have been born by a caesarian section. According to statistics, fewer and fewer hospitals are offering births in Germany at all. Only 37 percent of the 1,996 German hospitals carry out childbirth, compared to 37.7 percent in the previous year. But the number of births is rising. In 2013, there were 674,245 children, 1.3 percent more than in 2012. Dead were born 0.3 percent of children. (Ad)