The findings suggest a sea change in attitudes and practices regarding elective surgical delivery around 1996, but Declercq says this is just speculation.

Women who have had previous surgical deliveries are less likely than they were a decade ago to attempt a subsequent vaginal birth.

The second most common reason for surgical deliveries, accounting for about 27 percent of Caesareans, is failure of labor to progress.

Let's face it - surgical delivery is pretty much always on the table, since so many women require it at the very last minute.

In most hospitals, they were done only when a surgical delivery was deemed necessary to preserve the health of the mother or her baby.

She said that she was willing to pay the extra cost of a surgical delivery if her insurance company did not cover it.

And if surgical delivery follows rupture of the mother's membranes, the lower infant is exposed first to material entering the uterus, he said.

However, he noted, since 19 percent of second-born twins delivered through Caesarean section were infected, surgical delivery is no panacea.

But the woman who tells her physician she doesn't want a surgical delivery under any circumstances has arrived at the wrong address.

There are many reasons women might want to deliver vaginally after a surgical delivery.