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ATLANTA - The rate of Caesarean sections in the U.S. has climbed to an all-time high, despite efforts by public health authorities to bring down the number of such deliveries, the government said Tuesday.
Nearly 1.2-million C-sections were performed in 2004, accounting for 29.1 percent of all births that year, the National Center for Health Statistics reported. That is up from 27.5 percent in 2003 and 20.7 in 1996.
The increase is attributed to fears of malpractice lawsuits if a vaginal delivery goes wrong, the preferences of mothers and physicians and the risks of attempting vaginal births after Caesareans.
The C-section rate increased for all births, even those that involved healthy, first-time pregnancies with a full-term, single child. In 2000, the government announced a national public health goal of reducing the C-section rate for such births to 15 percent by 2010, but the actual rate now is about 24 percent and rising.
The government also reported that more than 500,000 infants were born preterm - at less than 37 weeks' gestation - in 2004, also a record.
Increases in multiple-fetus pregnancies and in pre-term C-sections seem to help explain the preterm and low birth weight numbers, said Joyce Martin, an epidemiologist who co-wrote the report.
For decades, C-sections were done in only a small fraction of births. In 1970, the national rate was 5 percent, but the rate surpassed 20 percent in the 1980s.
"Women are struggling to avoid unnecessary surgery, but the medical system has abandoned them," said Tonya Jamois, president of the International Cesarean Awareness Network, an advocacy organization.