A new way of looking at Caesarean section births

To implement the Robson Ten Group Classification System (TGCS) at the Royal Women's Hospital (RWH), Melbourne, in order to determine the main contributors to the rising Caesarean section (CS) rate.

The TGCS divides women into ten groups according to parity, past obstetric history, singleton or multiple pregnancy, fetal presentation, gestational age and mode of onset of labour/delivery. The TGCS was applied retrospectively to the population of women who had a registered birth at the RWH between January 2005 and 31 December 2005.

A total of 5833 women gave birth to 6011 babies during the study period. A total of 1651 women (28.3%) had a CS birth. The total CS rates ranged from 3.7% (group 3) to 100% (group 9). Women in groups 1 and 2 were the greatest contributors to the emergency CS rate, 4.2% and 4.9%, respectively. Women in group 5 were the single greatest contributor to both the elective CS rate and the total CS rate.

The TGCS was successfully implemented at the RWH in 2005. The TGCS is ongoing, enabling monitoring of CS rates. The Robson TGCS demonstrates the need to focus on the care of women in groups 1, 2 and 5 in particular, if CS rates are to be reduced.