COVID-19 Wider Impacts - Method of Delivery

Care for women around the time they are giving birth is an essential, time critical service that cannot be deferred. As such, it has been provided throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and maternity staff have not been redeployed to support other services. The way that some elements of this care are provided has changed in response to COVID-19 however, to minimise the risk of infection and to allow services to continue to provide safe care during times when a high number of staff may be off work, for example due to needing to isolate.

Guidance issued by the Scottish Government and Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to maternity services at the height of the first wave of the pandemic noted that:

• It may be necessary for services to temporarily suspend the option for women to deliver at home or in midwife led units, and to concentrate delivery care within obstetric units.

• Additional restrictions on the use of water births were recommended.

• Care pathways for women requiring induction of labour should be amended to ensure the early stages of the induction process were delivered on an outpatient basis wherever possible.

• Services should consider deferring a planned induction of labour or elective caesarean section if a woman was isolating due to having COVID-19, or having been in contact with a case, if it was safe to do so.

• Services should support low risk women in the early latent phase of labour to remain at home wherever possible.

• In general, strict restrictions on visitors for patients in hospital were advised, however women giving birth could still be accompanied by their chosen birth partner.

The ‘method of delivery' refers to the way a baby is born. Different methods of delivery include spontaneous vaginal delivery (a natural birth); assisted vaginal delivery (including vaginal delivery by forceps or ventouse, or vaginal delivery of a breech baby); or a caesarean section (an operation to deliver the baby through a cut in the mother’s abdomen). A caesarean section can be elective (planned in advance and provided before labour has started) or emergency (unplanned, and usually but not always provided after labour has started).

This dataset shows information on method of delivery at Scotland and NHS Board level. Age and deprivation breakdown is also available at Scotland level.

This data is also available on the COVID-19 Wider Impact Dashboard. Additional data sources relating to this topic area are provided in the Links section of the Metadata below. Information on COVID-19, including stay at home advice for people who are self-isolating and their households, can be found on NHS Inform.

All publications and supporting material to this topic area can be found in the weekly COVID-19 Statistical Report. The date of the next release can be found on our list of forthcoming publications.