Cesarean section on demand: a population-based study in Southern Brazil

Abstract Objectives: to measure the prevalence and identify factors associated to the occurrence of cesarean section on demand in the municipality of Rio Grande, RS. Methods: all births that occurred in the two maternities between 01/01 to 12/31/2007, mothers who lived in the municipality were questioned on demographic and maternal reproductive characteristics, family socioeconomic level and health care received during pregnancy and childbirth. The outcome was constituted by cesarean section on demand, in other words, the request was from the parturient. In the analysis, Poisson regression was used with robust adjustment of the variance. The effect measurement used was the prevalence ratios (PR). Results: among the 2,557 parturients included in this study, 51.6% (CI95%:49.6%-53.5%) were submitted to cesarean sections, and 10.7% (CI95%:9.0%-12.4%) were on demand. After the adjustment based on previous hierarchical model, the variables showed significantly the association to the outcomes which were maternal schooling, household income, type of hospitalization (public or private) and being attended by the same physician throughout the prenatal period. Conclusions: the PR obtained show that the probability of occurrence of cesarean section on demand was substantially higher among the mothers who presented the lowest risk of complications during pregnancy and childbirth