Greece Records Highest Cesarean Section Rate in the EU

While the planetary mean for C-sections sat astatine 22% successful 2023, Greece’s figures person soared acold beyond planetary norms. Credit: AMNA

According to a caller study, Greece has reached a captious turning constituent successful maternal health, reporting the highest fig of Cesarean sections (C-sections) per 100 births successful the European Union.

While the planetary mean for C-sections sat astatine 22% successful 2023, Greece’s figures person soared acold beyond planetary norms:

• Current Rate (2023): 62.2% of each births successful Greece are performed via C-section.
• Rapid Growth: The complaint climbed from 57.8% successful 2019 to implicit 62% successful conscionable 4 years.
• EU Comparison: Greece’s complaint is much than triple that of countries similar the Netherlands, Sweden, Slovenia, Belgium, and France, wherever C-sections stay beneath 20%.

Despite claims that late-age gestation drives these numbers, the information suggest otherwise. While 10.65% of Greek women springiness commencement aft property 40 (similar to Spain’s 10.79% and Ireland’s 11.27%), Greece’s C-section complaint (62.2%) dwarfs Spain’s (24.7%) and Ireland’s (38.6%).

The cesarean conception complaint successful Greece is simply a nationalist wellness concern

The writer of the study, Professor Vyron Kotzamanis, Director of the Institute of Demographic Research, emphasizes that these figures correspond a “public wellness issue.” According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the “optimal” C-section complaint is betwixt 10% and 15%. Rates exceeding 20% are mostly considered to bespeak unnecessary aesculapian intervention.

The survey suggests that a ample information of these surgeries successful developed nations similar Greece are not medically indicated. Factors contributing to the “excessive” usage of C-sections include:

• Higher fiscal costs for families and nationalist wellness providers (EOPYY).
• Non-medical convenience oregon deficiency of organization enactment for earthy birth.
• Increased risks to some parent and newborn without a corresponding alteration successful mortality rates.

The way forward

Since 2016, the WHO has urged Greece to instrumentality measures to halt this upward trend. Experts reason that the “C-section epidemic” requires contiguous intervention, including:

• Policy Reform: Implementing strict protocols to bounds non-essential surgeries, akin to measures taken successfully successful different EU nations.
• Public Awareness: Launching nationwide campaigns to pass families astir the risks of unnecessary C-sections.
• Medical Mobilization: Engaging gynecological and obstetric associations to betterment objective practices.

“These highly precocious rates… spot a dense load connected the outgo of childbirth,” states Prof. Kotzamanis. “But careless of cost, excessive C-sections represent a nationalist wellness occupation that makes involution urgent.”

Global context

Globally, C-section rates person tripled since 1990. While this summation is seen arsenic a affirmative motion successful processing nations—where the process saves lives—in developed nations similar Greece, the inclination is viewed with expanding alarm by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO).