Rates of cesarean delivery--United States, 1991.

Cesarean deliveries have accounted for nearly 1 million of the approximately 4 million annual deliveries in the United States since 1986 (Table 1). The cesarean rate in the United States is the third highest among 21 reporting countries, exceeded only by Brazil and Puerto Rico (1). This report presents data on cesarean deliveries from CDC's National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS) for 1991 and compares these data with previous years.