Cesarean births (C-sections) are increasing in China. The situation has reached epidemic proportions, and some of the serious consequences should make Chinese women think twice before requesting this procedure. Today, China has one of the highest rates of C-sections in the world, estimated at 46 percent in 2007.
Cesarean delivery on maternal request is a movement that may have started in Brazil, which has one of the world's largest populations of cesarean-born children. The use of this procedure, however, carries some health risks, warns the World Health Organization, which doesn't see the advantages of the shift from vaginal birth to cesarean birth.
In a survey of nine Asian nations, the WHO found that unnecessary C-sections are costlier than natural births and raise the risk of complications for the mother. Many experts still insist that natural birth is the ideal way. "The relative safety of the operation leads people to think it is as safe as vaginal birth," said Dr. A. Metin Gulmezoglu, who co-authored the Asia report, "but that's unlikely to be the case."