Cesarean section in the sow: A retrospective analysis of litter size and stillbirth rate

The purpose of this study was to examine the litter size and stillbirth rate associated with cesarean-derived litters and to examine the relationship between the number of previous cesarean sections a sow had experienced and litter size. The records of 856 cesarean sections during a ten-year period from 1978 to 1988 were examined. The mean litter size was 10.6 +/- 3.2 and the mean number of stillborn pigs per litter was 0.2 +/- 0.8. The low level of stillbirth observed in this study provides supportive evidence to many earlier publications suggesting that the majority of stillborn pigs die during the birth process itself.A negative correlation between the number of previous cesarean sections a sow had experienced and litter size (r(2) = 0.015, p < 0.001) was observed. The slope of the regression line was -0.55, suggesting that litter size is reduced by approximately one-half a piglet for each cesarean section the sow has previously experienced. There are many factors which influence the variation in litter size. The small correlation coefficient (r(2) = 0.015) observed in this study indicates that only 1.5% of the variation in litter size can be explained by the number of previous cesarean sections that the sow has experienced.