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A new study puts into doubt the idea that forceps are more dangerous for delivering newborns than are vacuum deliveries or C-sections, even though the trend has lately been away from forceps.
The study, out of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, researched 400,000 births to first-time mothers. The seizure rate among newborns was 45% lower among forceps-delivered babies (0.12%) than those delivered from C-sections or vacuum (0.3%).
However, rates of brain hemorrhage were lower among C-section babies (0.1%) than for those born of forceps (0.14%) and vacuum (0.19%). Also, risks like vaginal tearing are lower for C-sections than for forceps or vacuum births.
On the other hand, seizures generally cause longer-lasting damage to the child than do hemorrhages, and the overall chance of seizure is much higher with C-section or vacuum.
This information questions the trend that obstetrics has been taking away from forceps. In 1990, forceps were used in 5% of deliveries. By 2007, that figure had steadily declined to less than 1%. Vacuum-assisted births, on the other hand, reached 6% in 2003. By 2007, C-sections also went up to a third of all deliveries, from 21% ten years earlier.
The research team believes this trend may be because medical schools have focused less and less on forceps, but it is not clear why that should be the case, especially without any evidence pointing to the danger of forceps.
This all, of course, makes consulting with one's doctor about a contingent method of delivery something of an uninformed discussion.
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