Does Advanced Maternal Age Comprise an Independent Risk Factor for Caesarean Section? A Population-Wide Study

Anna Šťastná (), Tomáš Fait, Jiřina Kocourková and Eva Waldaufová
Additional contact information
Anna Šťastná: Department of Demography and Geodemography, Faculty of Science, Charles University, 128 00 Praha, Czech Republic
Tomáš Fait: Department of Demography and Geodemography, Faculty of Science, Charles University, 128 00 Praha, Czech Republic
Jiřina Kocourková: Department of Demography and Geodemography, Faculty of Science, Charles University, 128 00 Praha, Czech Republic
Eva Waldaufová: Department of Demography and Geodemography, Faculty of Science, Charles University, 128 00 Praha, Czech Republic

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 20, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Objective: To investigate the association between a mother’s age and the risk of caesarean section (CS) when controlling for health factors and selected sociodemographic characteristics. Methods: Binary logistic regression models for all women who gave birth in Czechia in 2018 (N = 111,749 mothers who gave birth to 113,234 children). Results: An increase in the age of a mother significantly increases the odds of a CS birth according to all of the models; depending on the model, OR: 1.62 (95% CI 1.54–1.71) to 1.84 (95% CI 1.70–1.99) for age group 35–39 and OR: 2.83 (95% CI 2.60–3.08) to 3.71 (95% CI 3.23–4.27) for age group 40+ compared to age group 25–29. This strong association between the age of a mother and the risk of CS is further reinforced for primiparas (probability of a CS: 11% for age category ≤ 19, 23% for age category 35–39, and 38% for age category 40+). However, the increasing educational attainment of young women appears to have weakened the influence of increasing maternal age on the overall share of CS births; depending on the model, OR: 0.86 (95% CI 0.80–0.91) to 0.87 (95% CI 0.83–0.91) for tertiary-educated compared to secondary-educated women. Conclusions: The age of a mother comprises an independent risk factor for a CS birth when the influence of health, socioeconomic, and demographic characteristics is considered.

Keywords: caesarean section (CS); maternal age; fertility postponement; marital status; education; Czechia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/668/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/668/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2022:i:1:p:668-:d:1020151

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().