The number of caesarean cases is increasing drastically in Canada. One out of every four babies is delivered through operation. Canadian are bending towards surgical birth. They don’t realize that the surgical birth is putting women and children at risk for post-partum complications and creating a movement away from natural, intervention-free deliveries. The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC) issued this warning this week. The rate of surgery-assisted births in Canada jumped to 26.3 percent in 2006 from 17.6 percent in 1993.

"We fear that there may be an emerging trend towards more scheduled childbirth and routine intervention," the society warns. "We need to be sure that C-sections are not driven by convenience, that interventions are medically indicated, and that the safety of a woman and her baby are the driving factors in these decisions."

The SOGC said that a number of factors are responsible for this increase in caesarean cases. These include the current situation among birthing women, including rising obesity rates and the growing number of women delaying pregnancy until later in life. C-sections take longer recovery times than vaginal births. Moreover these are accompanied with the risk of complications such as infection, bleeding, scarring, chronic pelvic pain and damage to the intestines and bladder. The surgical procedure can also raise the risk of complications in later pregnancies. Obese women tend to have longer labours, and to give birth to bigger babies, putting them at higher risk for a C-section, says Dr. Guylaine Lefebvre, the society's president and chief of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto.

According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, the average age of a Canadian woman who had a C-section in 2005-2006 was 30.4, compared to 28.7 for women who had a vaginal delivery. But the country's all-time-high C-section rate is also being driven by the growing number of women seeking "elective" caesareans, a phenomenon labelled "too posh to push" after Victoria Beckham and other celebrity moms began popularizing the practice.

"These additional C-sections place excess burden on a maternity care system that is already facing a shortage of obstetricians and other health professionals," Dr. André Lalonde, SOGC Executive Vice-President, said in a statement this week.

This increase has increased the demand for midwives, who provide continuity of care to women with low-risk pregnancies throughout pregnancy, birth and a six-week post-partum period.