Doctors’ use of Caesarean section to deliver babies has nearly doubled in 15 years to reach “alarming” proportions in some countries, a study says.
Rates surged from about 16 million births (12%) in 2000 to an estimated 29.7 million (21%) in 2015, the report in the medical journal The Lancet said.
The nation with the highest rate for using the surgery to assist childbirth is the Dominican Republic with 58.1%.
According to BBC News, doctors say in many cases the use of the medical procedure is unjustified.
Until recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) suggested that Caesarean section – or C-section – rates of more than 15% were excessive.
The study analysed data from 169 countries using statistics from 2015 – the most recent year for which the information is available.
