Caesareans increase risk of newborn death

The Scotsman reports, Newborn babies are more than twice as likely to die when their mothers choose to have a Caesarean section, compared with natural births, according to new research.

Although the reasons remain uncertain, the scientists said the gap between the figures could be that labour helped babies to breathe better and adapt to the outside world.

They said understanding the causes of the differences was important because of the rapid growth in the number of women choosing to have Caesareans.

In 1999 Caesareans made up 20 percent of NZ births. As well as increasing risk to the baby, other hot-off-the-press research has shown Caesareans triple the risk of the mother dying during the birth.