High number of C-sections may be due to monetary considerations
The rate of Caesarean sections in the US may be high because it is more profitable for doctors
A new health-care study has suggested that the rate of Caesarean sections in the US may be high because it is more profitable for doctors. The study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, compared cases involving patients who were themselves qualified doctors with cases of non-doctor patients. The researchers theorized that the operating doctor would be less likely to suggest an unnecessary C-section to an educated patient. Gynaecologists were 10% less likely to suggest a C-section to doctor-patients than non-doctor patients.
“Obstetricians appear to be treating their physician patients differently than [they treat] their non-physician patients,” said co-author Erin Johnson, of MIT. The researchers stressed that gynaecologists may not even be aware of the influence of the monetary incentive. Rather, they claim, it plays a subconscious, but significant, role in decision-making.
Xavier Symons
Creative commons
Caesarean sections
professional conduct
- Queensland legalises ‘assisted dying’ - September 19, 2021
- Is abortion a global public health emergency? - April 11, 2021
- Dutch doctors cleared to euthanise dementia patients who have advance directives - November 22, 2020
More Stories
China is desperate to raise its birthrate
China’s fertility rate has sunk to 1.18 children per woman and its population has begun to decline. Deaths outnumbered births...
American man says that he is both father and mother for his kids
This must be one of the most bizarre custody cases ever decided by an American court. The Superior Court of...
Are we already living in a transhumanist reality?
Last year an Oxford expert in transhumanism published “Future Superhuman: Our transhuman lives in a make-or-break century”. Elise Bohan, an...
95% of Irish women who know that their unborn child is Down syndrome have abortions
Abortion was only legalized in Ireland in 2018. One of the consequences is that the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, a...
Massachusetts politicians propose prisoners as organ donors
Massachusetts is a state where conservatism goes to die, so it was astonishing to read a bill in its legislature...
Peru’s forced sterilization tragedy drags on in the courts
For at least 25 years, indigenous Peruvian women have been fighting for justice after they were forcibly sterilized by doctors...