Women who give birth by cesarean section are slightly more likely to have an ectopic pregnancy or one that ends in stillbirth in the future.

An ectopic pregnancy occurs when an egg is fertilized but implants itself somewhere other than the uterine lining.

This report comes from a study conducted using women from Denmark. Data was collected for 832,996 women regarding their first pregnancies and the women were followed until they either gave birth to a child, or endured a stillbirth, miscarriage, or ectopic pregnancy. Controlling for cesarean sections that occurred because of complications with a pregnancy, analysis was done using modelling techniques to predict the rate of complications for subsequent pregnancies. These were then compared to the estimated rate of future complications following a vaginal birth.

The results yielded a 14 percent increase in risk for stillbirth in the next pregnancy after a c-section and a nine percent increased risk of ectopic pregnancy given the same conditions.

Researchers are quick to note that despite the increase in risk, the occurrence of these complications is quite small. The 14 percent increase in stillbirth risk translates to an occurrence rate of one in 3000 births. For the ectopic pregnancy, the nine percent increase equates to a rate of one in 1000 pregnancies.

The significance of these findings is not meant to scare women hoping to become pregnant. Rather, it is meant to be taken in a global context as cesarean births are being utilized with increasing frequency but not always with the proper level of necessity.