Several people have sent me a link to news articles about a recent study linking Vitamin D Deficiency to Increased C-Section Rate.
Amy Romano, blogging as a guest on the Giving Birth with Confidence blog, has a really fabulous analysis of the study: Rotating Theories of the Increasing C-section Rate: Vitamin D Edition
Her conclusion is particularly astute:
"Another red flag for bias? One of the study’s four authors is a paid consultant to none other than Quest Diagnostics, the company that made me listen to an ad for vitamin D blood testing while I was on hold.
Debunking this study doesn’t mean that vitamin D deficiency is harmless or that there aren’t other potential public health benefits to preventing and treating vitamin D deficiency in pregnant women. But we need a lot more information before we start blaming the increasing cesarean rate on vitamin D. It’s tempting in the face of a cesarean epidemic to assume that women’s bodies are deficient in something or another, or to just assume that women are asking for it. These theories direct attention away from the systemic problems that keep the cesarean rate marching higher and higher."
Speaking of the Giving Birth with Confidence blog, Amy also has an in-depth post there looking at the new homebirth study from the Netherlands that concluded giving birth at home is at least as safe as giving birth in the hospital. Rixa at Stand and Deliver also has a good post about this homebirth study, including lots of links to the difference media coverage of it. Make sure to check these out!
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Molly
CfM Blogger
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