The New York Times reports on an analysis of health issues in children according to their mode of delivery. The study compares health problems in the offspring of 321,287 1st-time mothers in Scotland. Compared with vaginal birth, planned cesarean resulted in more incidences of asthma requiring hospital admission (3 more per 1000), inhaler prescriptions at age 5 (7 more per 1000), and death (0.8 more per 1000).
Compared with unplanned cesarean, more children delivered by planned cesarean developed Type 1 diabetes (2 more per 1000). Study authors note, however, that they were unable to adjust for some important confounding variables.
