RATE OF C-SECTIONS AT WEXFORD GENERAL ABOVE GUIDELINES
New figures show the rate of C-sections at Ireland’s maternity hospitals is well above global guidelines.
Figures show that 38 per cent of children born in one hospital, St Luke’s in Kilkenny, are delivered by C-section.
In Wexford Gerneral Hospital the figures for C Section deliveries stands at 23.6 per cent
That’s well above the guideline of 10 to 15 per cent suggested by the World Health Organisation.
The figures from the HSE were released to the Association of Improvements in Maternity Services.
Krysia Lynch is the Co-Chair of AIMS.
She says Irish maternity services are based on consultant-led models.
“If women are being cared for by midwives then they tend to have much lower Caesarian section rates and much lower episiotomy rates” she said.
“What you tend to find in all of our maternity hospitals in Ireland is that the chief model of care is an obstetric, medicalised model of care – and often women are giving very short times within which to birth, and that tends to mean that more interventions will be used to speed women up” she added.
