| very year, one-third of the 4 million child-bearing women in the United States have a cesarean delivery. Of these, 91% have a repeat cesarean delivery with the birth of subsequent children. Cesarean deliveries account for more than half of childbirth-related hospitalization expenses totaling approximately ;The purpose of this research was to determine the cost-effectiveness of elective repeat cesarean deliveries (ERCD) compared with trials of labor (TOL) in low-risk women who had a cesarean delivery with their first pregnancy and are now in their second pregnancy. The study compared the cost-effectiveness of ERCD versus TOL from the perspective of the health-care payer (defined as private insurance, self-pay, Medicaid, and Medicare). Cost-effectiveness was calculated on the difference of costs to the health-care payer for a delivery-related hospital stay and the possible complications incurred by the mother and baby divided by the difference of length of stay in the hospital for mother and baby for the two interventions, ERCD and TOL. Sources of data for the study were the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ's) Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUPnet) for the year 2010, and the peer-reviewed literature. The study's findings reveal that a TOL is more cost-effective than an ERCD, with a possibility of cutting the health-care payers' costs overall by... |
