Baby Talk | Cesarean delivery has become more popular over the years

Q: Is it better to have a cesarean delivery or a normal delivery?

A: A cesarean delivery has potentially many more complications than a vaginal (normal) delivery. It is major abdominal surgery that is done for a medical reason. It is done if either the mother's health or the baby's health is jeopardized by a vaginal delivery.

Cesareans are also called C-sections. There are references to cesareans back to the first century AD. There were usually done to cut the baby out of the mother's uterus after she had already died in childbirth.

The word Cesarean is from the Latin verb caedere, which means "to cut."

In 1581, Francois Rousset wrote about cesarean deliveries. He describes the procedure after he received information from letters sent to him. He never actually saw one. By the 17th century there were more reports about cesareans, but it was still a very rare operation. The reason it was so rare was there was no anesthesia, excessive blood loss and infections that killed the mother.

In the mid 1800s diethyl ether allowed doctors to experiment with putting patients "to sleep" during surgery.

A British doctor, Dr. John Snow, is credited with being one of the first to discover the connection between the amount of ether administered to the patient, the temperature of the environment and how it impacted the health of the patient.

In 1853, he attended Queen Victoria during the birth of her son Leopold. He used chloroform as an anesthetic during her cesarean delivery. It was a huge gamble on his part, but he was confident. She was thrilled with the results and had him attend her again in 1857 when she had another cesarean for her daughter Beatrice.

Even though the use of anesthesia made it a more bearable procedure, many women still died from blood loss and infections. In 1922, Dr. John Kerr described a way of cutting into the uterus that decreased blood loss. His incision technique is still used today.

In 1928, penicillin was discovered by Dr. Alexander Fleming. By the 1940s penicillin became widely available and it had a dramatic affect in reducing infections.

In 1965, the national average rate of cesareans was 4.5 percent by 1988 it was 24.7 percent. Last year the CDC reported that the cesarean rate in the United States was 32.2 percent.

The surgery itself has become safer so it is more common. It is important to also acknowledge it is rare for women to die during childbirth since the techniques for doing cesareans have improved. However, it still is major surgery and it still carries risks that are not associated with a normal vaginal delivery.

Katie Powers, R.N., is a board-certified lactation consultant and perinatal educator at Manatee Memorial Hospital's Family BirthPlace. Her column appears every other week in Healthy Living.

Contact her at katie.powers@mmhhs.com.

This story was originally published November 9, 2015 at 4:40 PM with the headline "Baby Talk | Cesarean delivery has become more popular over the years ."