Questions on Pregnancy

Question:
Is there a correlation between when doctors use monitors to monitor babies and cesareans?

Answer:
This is a very normal concern for women. Women sometimes wonder if monitoring increases the possibilities of needing a cesarean or another type of intervention in order to give birth, like using forceps or an aspirating extractor. Studies have shown though that there is in fact a correlation between monitoring and the need of doing a cesarean. However, keep in mind that the procedure itself is not actually what causes the need to then practice a cesarean; it just alerts the doctor earlier about the potential problems that would make a cesarean recommendable.

In past years it is possible the correlation between monitoring and cesarean deliveries might have been greater, because doctors tended to opt for this procedure to avoid any problems from coming up. Nowadays there are many more alternatives when it comes to attending these problems, so the correlation is not as clear as it was in the past.