Cesarean birth

Research and reference material on cesarean birth cover why it is performed, how it is done and what follows. Reference entries describe cesarean delivery, vaginal delivery, abnormal labor and perimortem cesarean delivery. A good practice recommendations paper from FIGO addresses cesarean delivery with a triage approach for labor, and another paper looks at cesarean delivery before term from neonatal and pediatric points of view.

A large share of the tracked papers concerns birth after a previous cesarean. These include a reference entry on vaginal birth after cesarean delivery, practice guidelines on prediction models for trial of labor after cesarean, a study of predictors of successful trial of labor in women with one prior transverse cesarean, and a cross-sectional study of preferences and determinants of delivery mode in women with one scar in two Ugandan public hospitals.

Parents commonly ask when a cesarean is needed, what the surgery involves, how recovery goes and what it means for future births. Researchers continue to look at how to predict and weigh different paths, and findings differ across populations and health systems.

An educator may want slides to treat cesarean birth as a birth in its own right, with attention to recovery and future choices. The papers below are the ones the Hub tracks on this topic.