Deciding to have a Caesarean section at 37 weeks, when an infant is technically full-term, should be harmless, right? Wrong, according to a new study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. 
The information in the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and reported by many media outlets, including the New York Times, says that babies born via C-section at 37 weeks are twice as likely to develop complications as children delivered via C-section at 39 weeks. At 38 weeks, the increase in medical risk is also higher, but only by 50 percent. In other words, it's safest to have that Caesarean at 39 or 40 weeks. Or, to put another spin on this data, women who elect to have C-sections a little ahead of the curve, primarily for reasons of convenience, are putting their kids at risk.
Of course, as we all have heard and read, more women have been doing just that in recent years. As the Times reports, 30 percent of deliveries in 2006 were "Cs," an increase of more than 20 percent over 10 years prior.
Now, a lot of the blame for that gets placed on the moms, those "horrible control-freak women who just have to organize and schedule everything." But I suspect that, at least in some cases, OBs also bear some of the responsibility for encouraging women to go ahead and schedule the 'ol C because it's just as convenient for them as it is for the mom. At the least, doctors may not be discouraging women from taking that course of action.
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They Say: Even Late Preemies at Higher Risk
Image: newyorktimes.com
In light of this new study, I wonder if we'll see a shift in that trend, both in terms of what OBs and their patients will allow. No matter how attached we are to our Blackberries and Google Calendars, we all want to deliver healthy babies. And this knowledge could very well change people's plans.
Given the information in this study, would you elect to have an early C-section or would you wait until that 39th or 40th week?
