SAN ANTONIO – Roughly one in three babies born in the U.S. are delivered by Cesarean section, but medical researchers say about half of those aren't medically necessary. And that’s happening more often than it used to.
According to Consumer Reports, doctors or hospitals may sometimes rush a C-section because they think labor has gone on long enough or because the maternity ward is especially busy.
A woman's biggest risk of having an unnecessary C-section could actually be the hospital where they choose to give birth.
To reduce your risk of an unnecessary C-section, Consumer Reports offers some suggestions.
You can Consumer Reports’ free hospital ratings to see the scores for the hospitals in our area.
That lets people compare hospitals based on how often they perform C-sections for low-risk cases.
If you have a low-to-moderate-risk pregnancy, they say think about using a midwife. They don’t do surgery and they’ll only transfer you to a doctor if it’s medically necessary.
Don’t rush to the hospital. Talk to you doctor or midwife and ask if you can wait until your contractions are three minutes apart, last for one minute and have been like that for one hour. And once you’re at the hospital, don’t rush to induce labor.
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