Is ICAN Under Stating How Bad the Cesarean Epidemic is?
Recently Gretchen Humphries, the advocacy director of ICAN; as well as Peggy Robertson, a woman who was denied health insurance coverage because of a prior cesarean birth, were able to testify before congress about the need for reform in health insurance related to maternity issues. I am glad that they got this opportunity.
Over all I think that their testimony was probably well spoken and effective, however I’m afraid that mis-use of statistics may have led to them actually UNDER stating how serious the problem currently is. In the article that recounts their experience on capitol hill, the following statement is made:
“As of 2007, 31.8% of childbearing women in the United States had a cesarean delivery”
Further statements in the article reinforce the idea that about one third of women in America have cesareans.
This isn’t accurate, and I think that accurate data really needs to be expressed to get people who aren’t in the birth field to understand the outrage that is occurring. While it is true that 31.8% of births in America were cesareans in 2007…that doesn’t mean that 31.8% of women have cesareans.
The frightening reality is that I believe it is probably closer to 40 or 45% of women who have birthed in the past decade have at least one cesarean in their history–it could easily be as high as 50%.
Why? In the first “Listening to Mothers” survey it was found that while the average cesarean rate was 24%, the cesarean rate in first time moms was 31%. With a cesarean rate in 2007 of 32%…how high is the cesarean rate in first time moms now? I’d estimate it to be easily over 40%. Add to that the women who birth vaginally the first time, but end up needing a cesarean for a future birth (5% in the Listening to Mothers survey), and that is how I get my estimate of 40-45% of all women who have birthed in the past few years have had at least one cesarean.
So my bottom line answer to the question posed in the title of this post is that yes, I think that ICAN is understating how bad the cesarean epidemic is. But I don’t think there is any desire on the part of ICAN to do this.
I would encourage ICAN to commission a survey of women who have birthed in the past decade to examine this issue, or work together with Maternity Connection to look at this question. I think it is going to take people really understanding how huge this problem is becoming for change to happen.
Maybe a certain amount of those woman have had many c-sections. (very large I would say!)
Go ICAN!
Yes, Naomi, there is a very large percentage of women who have had multiple cesareans. I know some of them.
But there really is no getting around the concept that first time mothers are more likely to have cesareans than the national average, and then when you add in the women that have cesareans for a second birth who didn’t have one previously…
The reason the average is lower than the rate experienced in first time mothers is that women who have vaginal births are more likely to have more children.
And yes, go ICAN.
I’m just trying to point out something that I think can make their argument that SOMETHING needs to change more compelling.
Where do these stats come from? I am not questioning them, but I am a midwifery student writing a paper on the cesarean problem in this country. I would like to have solid statistics to site.
Julia,
I cited my sources where I have them–mostly the “Listening to Mothers” survey. And then I also stated when I was speculating. To add another resource, consider the “CDC Wonder” data set at http://wonder.cdc.gov/lbd-current.html I just ran a query there of ALL first time mothers who gave birth in 2003-2005, and came up with a 30% cesarean rate. Unfortunately, I can not figure out how to use that data set to pick out how many women have a vaginal birth for their first, but a cesarean for a subsequent child.
I felt I got blown off by ICAN. They said to do a valid survey they would need to survey at least 1% of women who birthed in a given year, or 40,000 women…which they can’t afford. I don’t think their survey pool needs to be so large.