Reducing c section risk may be as simple as selecting a female obstetrician says the NY Times.

A recent review of studies was done in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. They looked at the data from 1.2 million births supervised by both male and female doctors. They assessed an additional 11 studies that studied hypothetical situations to assess over 4900 obstetricians for their preferences.

Overall, female obstetricians were 25% less likely to perform a c section than male doctors overall. Under the hypothetical studies, female obstetricians were 40% less likely than male doctors to consider a c section under similar circumstances.

There will be a follow-up study to this to better understand why there was such a difference. For now, the data clearly shows that male obstetricians are more likely to perform a c section than a female doctor in similar situations.

Check out the article below

Women Doctors Are Less Likely to Perform C-Sections

Female obstetricians are less likely than their male colleagues to perform cesarean sections, a review of studies has found.

By Nicholas Bakalar Nov. 11, 2020

Female obstetricians are less likely than their male colleagues to perform cesarean sections, a review of studies has found.

Researchers pooled data from 15 studies from around the world covering more than 1.2 million births supervised by female and male doctors, plus 11 studies that used hypothetical scenarios to assess 4,911 obstetricians for their preferences. The review is in Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Overall, female obstetricians were 25 percent less likely to do a C-section than male doctors. In studies using criteria like the position of the fetus or the onset of labor, women doctors had lower odds of doing a C-section given the same clinical circumstances. Babies of similar gestational age, for example, were more likely to be delivered by C-section if a male obstetrician was in charge.