Hi Henci

I have used the following two sites in the past to find current statistics on cesarean rates and VBAC rates.  Now it seems these databases are no longer maintained.  The most recent data is from 2007.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/births.htm

http://www.oshpd.ca.gov/HID/Products/PatDischargeData/ResearchReports/HospIPQualInd/Vol-Util_IndicatorsRpt/index.html

I am wondering if you have any information why there is not more recent data.  I am speculating that the economic downturn may have reduced funding to such programs?

Thanks!

Tienchin

Possibly, but the economic recession doesn't explain it fully. There used to be a statistical report on the national cesarean and VBAC rates every year for the year two years previous to the publication year. Then the lag time between reports started getting longer and longer, but that started before the downturn.

-- Henci

Hi, you might be able to get state statistics. 

Here in Ohio at www.odh.gov is a database of a lot of childbirth statistics.  Some are hard to dig up, such as individual hospital charges for vag and cesarean births, VBAC rates, etc. Others are easy to get, such as on the homepage is a "Hospital Compare" button that lets people select one or more hospitals and get cesarean rates of first time moms with no complications.  Pretty cool.  Now to just get the rates down!

I've put these stats for regional hospitals on my web site at www.birthprepbasics.com as part of my advocacy efforts. 

Again, not as nice as getting national stats, but folks might want to know that state departments of health might have this info available. 

Lucy Juedes, LCCE

Athens, OH

One thing to watch out for is how the statistic is defined. The conventional definition of VBAC is number of vaginal births per 100 women with prior cesarean; however, here in California a gov't agency was calculating the rate using low-risk women with prior c/secs as the denominator, only you wouldn't know it because the definition of terms was in a different place not obvious or easy to find. I was tipped to it because they did the same thing with c/sec rates, i.e., reported c/sec not in the population overall but in women at full-term with singleton, head-down babies. The rates at some of our local hospitals sounded suspiciously low, and I went looking.

-- Henci