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Comment by exhilaration | Hacker News Reader

I don't know dude, where I lived (New Jersey), some of the hospitals have insanely high c-section rates - much, much higher than could be justified by mothers having complications. Here's 2015:

  Hospital   Name	        City	        State	Rate	
  -----------------------------------------------------------
  Hackensack Medical Center	Hackensack	NJ	41.8%	
  HackensackUMC Mountainside	Montclair	NJ	29.8%		
  Holy Name Medical Center	Teaneck 	NJ	16.1%		
  Morristown Medical Center	Morristown	NJ	30.1%

Source: http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/15/10/07/effort-to-reduce...

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Did this statistic control for how people select certain hospitals (where applicable)?

Obviously, if a hospital is specializing in C-sections, it will handle cases where the likelihood of having a sectino is much higher.

(Similarly, hospitals are very dangerous places if you compare the death rate in a hospital to the death rate at any other place where people stay. Of course it's mostly not because hospitals kill people, it's mostly because people go to hospital when they are sick.)

True, Hackensack Medical Center is actually one of the best hospitals in NJ, so I wouldn't be surprised that people who might experience complications would go there.

See http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/area/nj

I think a slightly higher propensity to give c-sections leads to much higher total numbers because if you get one for birth X you are generally going to get another for birth X+1.

These are also all hospitals in higher-income areas that can be considered part of the larger NYC metro region, as it is home to many of the bridge-and-tunnel commuting workers. I would not be surprised if this demographic has a statistically significant deviation from the national norm when it comes to seeking certain medical services and attitudes on desired level of medical intervention during childbirth.

This is purely a hypothesis, however.

Furthermore, very-high-income areas (North NJ must have the highest furriers-per-capita in the US) tend to have a far higher median maternal age, which raises the likelihood of c-section.

Also, the US has generally higher rates than the rest of the first world, and it's not entirely clear that this actually leads to better outcomes. I think more in the medical field are starting to rethink this.

See: https://www.statnews.com/2015/12/01/cesarean-section-childbi...

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