The impact of maternal age over forty years on the caesarean section rate: Six year experience at a busy District General Hospital

Abstract

A retrospective study over a 6-year period was undertaken to determine the trend in age at booking for antenatal care at West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust and to investigate the relationship between maternal age at booking for antenatal care and mode of delivery. Between 2006 and 2011, there was an 80% increase in the number of women over the age of 40 years booking for antenatal care. The overall caesarean section rate in this cohort of women increased from 34.6% in 2006 to 53.7% in 2011, comprising of an increase in both elective and emergency caesarean sections. It appears that increasing maternal age may explain a significant proportion of the rising caesarean section rate in our unit.

Keywords::

• Caesarean section
• maternal age

Acknowledgements

Thanks go to Dr Satyam Kumar for data collection and Dr Saurhab Phadnis for statistical analysis.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

This work was in part funded by the Watford Gynaecological Research Fund (WRGF)