The study, conducted by members of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, has revealed that babies who were small for their gestational age and had been delivered early by C-section were much more likely to have respiratory distress syndrome than similar preterm babies born vaginally.
The research will be honored Thursday by the March of Dimes for new research that helps to prevent premature births and complications.
“We think this is an important study for providers to understand and possibly change their practices,” Dr. Diane Ashton, the deputy medical director for the March of Dimes, told FoxNews.com. “Basically the take-home message here is for small, gestational age preterm infants, the best route for [them] is a vaginal delivery. Similarly for elective deliveries that are being done close to term, the recommendation is to wait until 39 weeks, at which point you’ll have a healthier outcome.”
The March of Dimes has long since lobbied to reduce the number of medically unnecessary C-sections and inductions of birth before 39 weeks of pregnancy. On Wednesday, the March of Dimes announced its partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to expand the public awareness campaign ‘Healthy Babies Are Worth the Wait.’ The program is a perinatal health campaign aimed at letting women and health care providers know that it is best to wait for labor to begin on its own.
Led by Dr. Erika Werner, assistant professor of Maternal Fetal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the research team took a look at discharge information from 2,560 small-for-gestational age babies who were delivered before 39 weeks of pregnancy.
The team found that smaller babies for gestational age delivered by C-section before 34 weeks had a 30 percent higher chance of developing respiratory distress syndrome than babies of a similar gestational age who had been born vaginally.
