I haven't read all of the posts, but in NSW I did see stats published on c/s rates, along with use of drugs (split by type) and various other indicators of care, quite detailed (days in hospital, admission to special care, I think even types of intervention required, etc). I think it was about 5 years ago, so fairly recent, and definitely a public document. It was for both private and public hospitals. You could easily tell the difference between elective and emergency caesarians, even though I understand 'elective' is a very loosely coined term! Personally, I was particularly interested in knowing how many emergency caesarians were being performed, since I think that those are more in the hands of the carers in the hospital.

So I think the stats of c/s themselves are not enough and I'm wondering why it isn't Australia-wide that the stats I spoke of above are published?

Actually, when it comes down to it, I'd also want to see stats on the individual obs and their c/s rates. But I'm betting the AMA would have something to say about that. I personally asked my ob for his stats (off the top of his head) and was satisfied. And once I had a c/s for placenta praevia I was sure to ask him about his vbac views.

ETA - I found the report - it was called NSW Mothers and Babies 2004 and published by the CSIRO. Not sure if I can post it but here is a link: http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=vie...id=NB05S14.pdf Go to page 95 in the doc for the hospitals info. Page 97 has the c/s rates, split into elective and emergency.

I hope they do a report like this every few years.