Babies can sometimes be injured during c-section
Thu Oct 12, 2006 12:28 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - About 1 in 100 babies delivered by cesarean
section are injured in the process, a new study shows. The risk of injury is
influenced by the reasons for doing the c-section.

Dr. James M. Alexander, from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical
Center at Dallas, and colleagues analyzed data from all 37,110 cesarean
deliveries that took place at 13 academic centers between 1999 and 2000.

The overall rate of injury to the baby was 1.1 percent, according to the
team's report in the medical journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Wounds to the skin accounted for more than half of the injuries. The next
most common injury was severe bruising of the head, followed by broken
collarbone, facial nerve damage, injury to the chest-arm nerve network, and
skull fracture.

In women with a first-time c-section as well as those who had previously
undergone the procedure, the highest rate of fetal injury occurred following
an attempt to deliver through the birth canal using forceps or vacuum.

On the other hand, the lowest risk of injury was associated with elective
repeat cesarean deliveries.

While c-section can prevent birth trauma in certain circumstances, it can
also cause injury, Alexander and colleagues point out, as the current
findings illustrate. "Women should be counseled that, although fetal injury
is uncommon, it is not absent in cesarean delivery," they advise.

SOURCE: Obstetrics & Gynecology, October 2006.