Fewer caesareans would provide safer care, said medics

The trust has a lower than average rate of caesarean births and said cutting it further would provide safer care.

Senior midwife Hannah Jarvis said the average number of one-in-four births being a caesarean is too many.

The practice may be taken up across the UK after it was studied by officials from the NHS Institute of Innovation.

Nationally. the rate of women opting for a caesarean birth is about 23%, nearly one-in-four, but the figure for Leicester is less than one in five births at 19%.

'Higher risks'

But medics said the appropriate rate could be nearly half that at 10%.

More natural births would cut the risk of having a caesarean, doctors said.

Hannah Jarvis, a midwife at Leicester General part of the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, said: "We believe that caesarean delivery is appropriate and beneficial in only 10 to 15% of all births.

"A caesarean section is a major abdominal surgery which poses higher risks both to mother and baby than normal vaginal births.

"That's why we're committed to caesarean sections only being performed where there is a medical need," she said.

The NHS Institute of Innovation, which also studied the practice of five other trusts, is set to publish its report on caesarean births next week.