Women who worked up until their due date had four times the rate of c-sections as women who started their maternity leave at 35 weeks, a new study from UC Berkeley has found.
Now, I'm not sure how you can control for self-selection in that kind of study. I imagine that women starting their maternity leave early are both
more likely to be placing a priority on their birth experience and
better off financially, each of which could affect their outcomes.
(I'm assuming they excluded people with scheduled c-sections from the
study.)
On the other hand, the results were is four times as likely, not a titchy 10 to 15 percent or something.
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