Senators unite to address unnecessary cesarean sections

By THE STAR STAFF

Sens. Ada Álvarez Conde and María de Lourdes Santiago Negrón raised concerns Wednesday about the increase in cesarean sections reported in the Annual Vital Statistics Report on Births for 2021-2023, released by the Puerto Rico Department of Health.

In March of this year, the senators, from the Popular Democratic Party and Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), respectively, along with PIP Sen. Adrián González Costa filed Senate Bill 445, which recognizes obstetric violence as a human rights violation and provides a civil mechanism to address this type of violence. Obstetric violence, among other things, includes unnecessarily interfering with low-risk childbirth and performing cesarean sections without medical justification or without the mother’s express consent. The senators emphasized the importance of the Judiciary Committee considering the bill.

“The Puerto Rico Department of Health itself has stated that 55% of cesarean sections performed lack medical justification, and 80% of the women undergoing this procedure did not have any risk factors during their pregnancy,” Álvarez Conde said. “[...] The Department of Health’s report simply confirms what we already know: cesarean sections are on the rise, and a woman should have the right to decide how she wants to give birth.”

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute highlighted the publication of the Annual Vital Statistics Report on Births for 2021-2023, recently released by the Health Department. Among the main findings is an increase in the cesarean section rate. While in 2021, cesarean sections represented 49.6% of births, by 2023 this figure rose to 50.6%. This indicator reflects a trend that deserves analysis and monitoring, given its impact on maternal and neonatal health, as well as on the planning of medical services in Puerto Rico, the senators said.

“There is no justification for denying women information to which they are entitled as consumers of healthcare services,” Santiago Negrón said. “If anything has been demonstrated by the rise in the number of cesarean sections, it is the medical profession’s inability to regulate itself. That is why unnecessary cesarean sections are one of the manifestations of obstetric violence that this measure aims to address.”

According to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report covering the years 2018 to 2022, Puerto Rico has one of the highest rates of cesarean births worldwide.