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NHS trusts have for the first time barred women from routinely having elective caesareans because they cost too much. The procedure, which costs twice as much as a natural birth, will be rationed in Greater Manchester so that it is only available to women with specific medical conditions. Some top obstetricians condemn the decision, arguing that, while it will curb the fashion for choosing caesareans to reduce the pain of childbirth, it will also penalise those who opt for them on the grounds that they are safer for the mother. Caesareans have been placed on the same lists for rationing...

A baby has beaten odds of 13million to one to be born fit and healthy despite having grown in her mother's abdomen, instead of her womb. Doctors only realised Millie-An Pittman was in the wrong place when they performed an emergency Caesarean on her mum Lisa - who had originally been told she would find it hard to have children. The baby, whose name is a play on words on "one in a million", was delivered successfully weighing 8lb 7oz in one of only 100 such cases in the world ever. She is now four weeks old.

WASHINGTON (AP) - More than a quarter of babies born in the United States in 2003 were delivered by Caesarean section, the highest rate on record, according to a government report released Tuesday. Birth rates for teenagers continued their steady decline last year while increasing for women age 35 to 44, the report from the National Center for Health Statistics said. The agency is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 4.1 million births were recorded in the United States in 2003, a slight increase over 2002. Roughly 1.13 million, or 27.6 percent, were Caesarean deliveries. The...

   LONDON - Being born by Caesarean section may increase a baby’s risk of suffering from food allergies and diarrhea in the first year of life, German doctors said on Thursday.

SALT LAKE CITY - The woman charged with killing one of her twins by refusing a Caesarean section was convicted of child endangerment in Pittsburgh nearly four years ago, a newspaper reported Saturday. The 2000 conviction of Melissa Rowland stemmed from a supermarket incident in which she punched her daughter several times in the face after the toddler picked up a candy bar and began eating it, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported. Witnesses said Rowland screamed, "You ate the candy bar and now I can't buy my cigarettes." An Allegheny County, Pa., court sentenced Rowland to five years probation for simple...