VBAC Rates by State
The data below were requested from CDC National Center for Health Statistics. The percentage of women giving birth every year with a previous cesarean has tripled since 1980, when the estimated rate of births to women with a previous cesarean was 184,000. Although the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist’s (ACOG’s) guidelines changed in 2017 in an effort to make vaginal birth after previous cesarean (VBAC) more accessible to women and to lessen facility-level barriers to making the option of VBAC routinely available, the variation among states of both a) percentages of women with prior cesarean births, and b) VBAC rates, indicates a lack of standardization of policies and protocols related to the care provided to this subpopulation.
