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Caesareans could make it more difficult to have other children

Women having their babies by caesarean section could find it harder to become pregnant later, a study has found. Researchers in Bristol have discovered that once women have had a caesarean and then try to get pregnant again, the risk of it taking more than a year to conceive another baby increases.

The seven thousand women were all part of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), popularly known as Children of the 90s, which has monitored the health and development of over 14,000 families since the early 1990s.

The research from the Bristol University study, published today in the journal Human Reproduction, found that when women who had previously had a caesarean tried to get pregnant again there was almost double the risk of it taking longer than a year. The risk following caesarean section was 12% compared to 7% for women with no previous caesarean.

Anne Gorringe | alfa

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