Maternity Leave
Women who worked up until their due date had four times the rate of c-sections as women who started their maternity leave at 35 weeks, a new study from UC Berkeley has found.
Now, I'm not sure how you can control for self-selection in that kind of study. I imagine that women starting their maternity leave early are both more likely to be placing a priority on their birth experience and better off financially, each of which could affect their outcomes. (I'm assuming they excluded people with scheduled c-sections from the study.)
On the other hand, the results were is four times as likely, not a titchy 10 to 15 percent or something. That, as Dr. Seuss might say, is a whopping number, and it makes me inclined to think there really is something going on here.
Read more from "They Say: Planning to Work Until the First Contraction? Plan for Surgery."
