"Cesarean birth is a lifesaving procedure, with obvious benefits to mother and baby when vaginal birth is no longer safe. Nonetheless, previous decades saw an extraordinary rise and remarkable variation in cesarean birth rates, creating concern for the quality and cost of maternity care.1-4 In the ten years from 1998 to 2008, cesarean birth rates in the United States rose from 22% to 33% of all births,3 making it the nation’s most common hospital surgery. Having the largest population and the largest number of births of any state, birth trends in California at that time mirrored the increased cesarean rates nationwide, with cesarean birth accounting for approximately one-third of all births."
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