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The trial will assess an intervention aimed at reducing the alarming increase in caesarean section rates observed in the region.
Latin America is becoming the region with the highest rate of caesarean sections in the world, a figure which seems to be increasing. Therefore it is necessary to establish behaviours aimed at ameliorating this situation because if this continues, figures may reach even higher values which will imply serious consequences for the mothers and their children as well as very high costs to health systems. There are no strictly proven interventions to allow leading organisms to recommend their implementation so that more rational figures can be achieved in such operation. The proposal to be carried out consists of a research which will comprise about 60 hospitals in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala and Mexico to try in a rigorously scientific way an intervention which appears to be the most efficient to this aim. Such intervention, that consists of obtaining a second opinion before the decision to perform a caesarean section, also represents a feasible approach with a low cost to be applied within our reality. On the other hand, by trying it at very different places of the region, it will enable us to evaluate its feasibility throughout our regional variety. Should it be efficient, such multicentre research will favour the future dissemination and application of the intervention at other sites of the area. Moreover, it also aims at establishing a mechanism for epidemiological survey of caesarean section rate to assess the longterm impact of the implementation of this intervention in the medical practice in the region.
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to open protocol as a pdf file. The file will open in Acrobat Reader.