Caesarean birth safer for breech babies

True or false?

For babies in the breech position, caesarean delivery may be a safer choice than vaginal birth. A Canadian study of 52,671 breech deliveries, published in Obstetrics & Gynaecology, found that compared with C-sections, vaginal deliveries of breech babies were much more likely to result in an injured infant.

They also found that vaginal deliveries of breech babies had increased to
3.9 percent in 2011 from 2.7 percent in 2003. About 88 percent of breech babies were delivered by planned C-section. Compared with those babies, breech babies delivered by C-section during labour had 2.79 times the rate of injury, and those delivered vaginally had 3.6 times the rate.

Some breech babies should not be delivered vaginally in any case, according to the lead author, Dr Janet Lyons, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia. Those who are not full term, or with feet first instead of buttocks first, or those with birth anomalies like hydrocephalus, are not good candidates. But, she added, some women want vaginal delivery of a breech baby.

“The role of the provider,” she said, “is to decide who is suited to a vaginal breech and who is not, and to make sure the woman has all the information to make a good decision.”