More than half of UK births now involve medical intervention, audit finds

More than half of women having a baby in Britain now do so with the help of medical intervention, an audit of NHS maternity care has revealed.

Of the 592,594 births that took place in 2023, 50.6% involved either a caesarean section or the use of instruments such as forceps or a ventouse suction cup.

The increasing regularity of medical intervention is largely down to the sharp rise in caesarean births, in which the baby is delivered during an operation.

The proportion of babies born that way across England, Scotland and Wales has risen from 25% in 2015-16 to 38.9% in 2023, according to the National Maternity and Perinatal Audit (NMPA).

Dr Shuby Puthussery, an associate professor in maternal and child health at the University of Bedfordshire, said: “It’s worrying that over 50% of births involved medical intervention. But it’s linked to a broader demographic trend.

“We see a rather worrying trend of births to [older] women increasing year by year, along with significant increases in factors such as obesity, maternal diabetes and pre-existing medical conditions, leading to more complex medically assisted births, especially among women from ethnic minority groups and those living in poverty.”

Better access to antenatal care, especially scans, would help detect problems earlier and reduce the risk of mothers needing medical assistance while in labour, she said.

However, Prof Asma Khalil, the vice-president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), disagreed that a caesarean increases the risk faced by women.

“Caesarean births are common and the steady increase isn’t necessarily a cause for concern as long as future services are well-prepared to adapt and ensure they have the right staffing, training and facilities to manage increasingly complex births.

“The caesarean birthrate in England has steadily increased over the past decade. One factor in this is the increasing proportion of pregnancies that are complex.

“We are seeing national rising rates of obesity and people choosing to have children at a later stage in their life, both of which can increase the chance of complications.”

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 11 September 2025