Australia reports maternal request cesarean rate of 3.2%

This latest survey (published in January) from Australia, 'Estimating the Rate of Cesarean Section by Maternal Request: Anonymous Survey of Obstetricians in Australia' by Stephen J Robson et al, provides us with some interesting new information - both about maternal request cesarean rates and Australian obstetricians' views on them - so I have copied the abstract text below (with my bold text).

"The findings of a recent population-based study in Australia suggested that elective cesarean delivery of a singleton pregnancy at term without medical or obstetric indications (cesarean delivery by maternal request) may represent a significant proportion of cesarean births in that country. Maternal request cesarean section has been the subject of much debate in both the lay and the medical press, but there is little useful data on this issue in the medical literature. Worldwide estimates on its frequency are unreliable because of differences between studies in the definition used, diagnostic coding, and documentation by obstetricians. Maternal request cesareans in the era predating the current high rates of cesarean section were estimated to account for 4% to 18% of all cesarean deliveries.

To address this issue, the investigators estimated the rate of cesarean section by maternal request in Australia using 2 anonymous 1-page postal surveys, one for all 1239 specialist obstetricians and the other for all 317 registered obstetric trainees (residents) in Australia. The specialists were asked whether they perform cesarean delivery by maternal request and if so, how many maternal request cesareans they performed in the previous year. Trainees were asked if they would perform such deliveries in their future practice. A reminder letter with the questionnaire enclosed was sent 6 weeks after first mailing. Measures were taken to avoid having any practitioners answer the survey more than once.

The response rate for specialists was 99% and for trainees was 81%. From the specialist responses, it was estimated that between 8553 and 12,434 maternal request cesarean sections were performed in 2006. Using the lowest estimate (8553) in calculations, maternal request accounted for 17.3% of all elective cesarean sections and 3.2% of all births in that year. The likelihood of agreeing to perform maternal request cesarean deliveries was higher among specialists who were 10 or less years from qualification. Two-third of trainees expressed the intention of doing such cesareans in their future practice.

These findings support the hypothesis that maternal request cesareans make a significant contribution to the overall rate of cesarean deliveries in Australia."