5 Signs Your Hospital Will Probably Give You a C-Section

Why is the C-section rate so high?

While there may be a lot of myths surrounding getting a Cesarean section, this is for sure: the surgical procedure has become 500 percent more common in the last generation or two, says Neel Shah, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School. Why rates have shot up is one driver behind a new study that Dr. Shah co-authored, which is published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. The research team looked at 53 hospitals around the country and a total of more than 226,000 patients. After compiling a list of 16 different things that hospital managers pay attention to, they gave the management team a score of one to five based on how proactive they were in certain areas (meaning anticipating problems before they happen, and trying to deal with them). That sounds like a very good thing and something you want in medicine, but on the labor and delivery floor, the study found that being proactive is associated with a greater risk of surgery (C-sections), and heavy bleeding. “Part of what this study reveals is that in 2017, the biggest risk factor for having a C-section is not personal preference or medical risk, it’s what door you walk through,” says Dr. Shah. For instance, in parts of Southern California or Florida, even within the same zip code, you have vastly different risk of having a C-section depending on the hospital you deliver at. If you’re currently pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant down the line, these are five signs that the hospital you’ll deliver at is more likely to give you a C-section.