What If We Rolled Back the Cesarean Rate to 1950?

The year I was born, about 3 in 100 babies were delivered by cesarean. Today it’s 32 in 100. Critics say that’s a disaster. Let’s test that theory.

I was born in 1950. Harry Truman was president. A midwife attended my birth. There was no polio vaccine yet. And the cesarean rate in America was somewhere around 2-3%.

Today, that rate is about 32%. Every few weeks, someone publishes an article lamenting this “epidemic” of surgical birth. The World Health Organization says rates above 15% provide no benefit. Natural birth advocates call it a crisis.

So let’s do a thought experiment: What would happen if we went back to 1950?

The Numbers Don’t Lie

In 1950, the maternal mortality rate was roughly 80-100 deaths per 100,000 births. By 1955, it had dropped to about 47 per 100,000. Today? About 18 per 100,000.

The takeaway: As cesarean rates increased 10-fold, maternal mortality dropped by nearly 80%. Cesareans don’t necessarily cause maternal deaths — they contribute in preventing them.