Nearly a third, exactly 32.4 percent, of the 76,939 babies born in Austria last year were born by caesarean section, Statistics Austria reported on Friday. There are significant regional differences: the share was highest in Styria at 36.8 percent, ahead of Burgenland (34.5 percent). Vorarlberg had the fewest caesarean sections at 29.2 percent, followed by Upper Austria with 29.3 percent.
In 1995, when the type of delivery was first statistically recorded, this share was 12.4 percent. “The doubling of the number of caesarean sections in almost 30 years is partly due to the fact that women are becoming mothers later and later and the risk of having a caesarean section increases with age,” says Tobias Thomas, Managing Director of Statistics Austria. Last year, just over half of all caesarean sections were planned, 52.5 percent.
Mothers get older
With later motherhood, the chance of a caesarean section, as caesarean section is called in professional jargon, increases. Women aged 35 or older were 1.6 times more likely to give birth by caesarean section than women under 25, for whom the caesarean section rate is 25.3 percent.
The average age of women at birth last year was 31.5 years, which is 3.5 years more than about 30 years ago. During the same period, the average age at which women become mothers for the first time increased from 26.2 to 30.3 years (plus 4.1 years).
The position of the child is crucial
An important indicator for a caesarean section is the position of the baby in the womb. If the skull was in an irregular position, a caesarean section was performed in more than half of the cases (55.7 percent), and in the vast majority of cases (94.7 and 98.7 percent) if the skull was in breech or transverse position. A caesarean section was also mainly performed in multiple births (79.7 percent).
The majority of the children (98.3 percent) were born in a hospital. In 186 live births, the mothers chose a maternity hospital or a midwifery practice. 1,006 babies (1.3 percent) were born at home and 35 were born on the way to the hospital. About five percent of singleton births and 57 percent of multiple births were preterm, 92.9 percent were born at term, 6.8 percent were born preterm, and 0.2 percent were “transferred.”
A newborn girl weighed an average of 3,260 grams and was 50.4 centimeters long. Boys were slightly heavier at 3387 grams and also taller at 51.1 cm. Multiple births are still very rare: only 2.8 percent were born as twins or triplets.
Source: Krone
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