Maternal and perinatal outcomes during the 2020 and 2021 COVID-19 pandemic

Method of birth refers to how the baby was born, which may be vaginally – non-instrumental or with the assistance of forceps or vacuum (instrumental vaginal birth) – or by caesarean section.

For more information on method of birth, see Method of birth in Australia’s mothers and babies.

International research is mixed on whether COVID-19 infection increases the occurrence of caesarean section births. Some studies indicate that there was no increase (Chinn et al. 2021; Son et al. 2021), whilst others suggest that COVID-19 infection in pregnancy can increase the risk of needing an emergency caesarean section (Gurol-Urganci et al. 2021; Smith et al. 2023).

A New South Wales based study found that both elective and emergency caesarean section rates increased during the first 2 years of the pandemic (Trinh et al. 2023).

Figure 18 presents data on method of birth.

Figure 18: Proportion of women who gave birth, by method of birth and state and territory of birth, 2015 to 2021

Between 2015 and 2019, the proportion of women who had a caesarean section birth increased across Australia (from 33.3% in 2015 to 36.0% in 2019). Modelling showed that this was an annual increase of 0.7 percentage points. The observed proportion of women who had a caesarean section birth was 37.4% in 2020 and 38.2% in 2021, which was similar to the predicted proportions based on the modelling (36.7% in 2020 and 37.4% in 2021).

Data for modelling exclude 'Not stated' data and therefore may not match the proportions presented in the data visualisation above. For more information on modelling the trend over time, see Methods.

Women who lived in some geographical locations were more likely to have a caesarean section birth. Explore the map below (Figure 19) to view data on the number and proportion of women who had a caesarean section birth by PHN, remoteness and SA3.

Figure 19: Proportion of women who gave birth by caesarean section, by selected geography, 2017 to 2021