Women who are ‘too posh to push’ could be four times more likely to die in childbirth by opting for a caesarean section instead of natural birth, research has revealed.
A major study of more than 94,000 births found that women who had a planned caesarean section, favoured by celebrities such as Victoria Beckham, were putting themselves and their babies at increased risk of serious complications.
advertisement
The research, published in the British Medical Journal online today, found that the risk of maternal death was three to five times higher compared with natural deliveries. The risk of requiring a hysterectomy after a caesarean section was four times higher than for a natural birth and twice as high for being admitted to intensive care and needing a hospital stay of more than seven days.