Cesarean Section Delivery in the Districts of Pakistan: Prevalence, Extent, and Correlates

Abstract

C-section delivery is a life-saving surgical method to deliver one or more babies. It plays an important role to reduce maternal mortality and considers a safe procedure over the past few decades. According to WHO, C-section rate at 5-15% provides the best outcomes for mother and baby but there is no justification for higher than this rate. The worldwide rate of cesarean section increases and observes 21.1% in 2015, also increasing in Pakistan from 14% in 2013 to 22% in 2017-18. The objective of this study is to examine the prevalence, extent and correlates of cesarean section delivery in Pakistan as well as across the districts of Pakistan.  The study covering Sample of 12000 ever-married women based on Pakistan Demographic and Household survey (PDHS) 2017-18. There are some previous studies, with respect to utilization of cesarean section delivery, have found that the increasing the trend of cesarean section delivery was an outcome of   socioeconomic characteristics (respondent education, wealth status, gender of household head, women occupation), demographic (respondent age, total number of children ever born, gender of baby) and geographical factors (region, place of residence). Study concluded that among 143 districts of Pakistan, there are 69 districts where CS rate is above 15% and in 31 districts CS rate is below 5%. Only 43 districts have CS delivery rates in normal range of 5-15%.