Researchers have conducted a new study that found how babies in the breech position have increased risk of death when they are birthed through vaginal delivery, compared to a decreased risk from an elective cesarean section.
Cesarean deliveries are surgical procedures that involve the delivery of an infant through a single incision that is made in the mother's abdominal area. A C-section can be carried out as an elective procedure, or as a faster, more convenient method of delivering a baby during unforeseen medical emergencies that pose any kind of harm to the mother or the infant. On the other hand, vaginal delivery is considered as the more natural method of giving birth wherein the babies are delivered through the mother's birth canal and out the vagina.
While it is normally the head that should be on the end hat comes out first, babies that are in the breech position have their feet or buttocks positioned to come out first. According to a survey conducted by the American Pregnancy Association, there is one in every 25 pregnancies that turn out to be breech, so in order to reduce the risk of subsequent birth complications, doctors usually perform a C-section to deliver these infants. Moreover, vaginal deliveries of babies that are in the breech position increase the mortality risk for the child ten times over.
By studying data from over 58,000 pregnant mothers who gave birth between 1999 and 2007, researchers found that the increase in women who underwent elective Cesarean procedures went up from just 24% in 1999 to over 60% in 2007. This significantly reduced the neonatal mortality rate of breech babies from 13 in 1,000 to just 7. In contrast, researchers noted that there was no significant reduction in breeched infant death in babies from vaginal deliveries. Despite these facts, however, there is still a reported 40% of women with breech pregnancies that choose to undergo vaginal delivery.