What would happen if all Dutch women had a planned c-section for breech?

Each year around 6,490 women in the Netherlands (40%) still plan a vaginal breech birth. This number is significantly lower than it was before the 2000 Term Breech Trial, where roughly 75% planned a vaginal breech birth and around 50% overall gave birth vaginally to their breech babies (see Rietberg et al 2003).

A national registry study by Vlemmix et al (2014) calculated the anticipated neonatal benefits if these remaining 6,490 Dutch women all planned c-sections.

If all women who nowadays still undergo a planned vaginal breech birth were to receive an elective cesarean, 6490 more elective cesareans would be performed. This would lead to an additional annual reduction of 10 neonatal mortalities, 116 neonates with low Apgar scores and 20 neonates with birth traumata.

This calculation only considers short-term neonatal benefits--not long-term neonatal outcomes, not short- or long-term maternal outcomes. Here is another way of understanding these numbers:

In several national registry studies, planned CS for breech leads to small but measurable improvements in short-term neonatal outcomes (mortality and morbidity). However, these improvements are consistently much smaller than the Term Breech Trial's findings.

This pressing question remains: at what point do the short- and long-term risks of routine cesarean begin to outweigh the short-term benefits to the baby? How many elective cesareans are justified to save 1 baby? What if women are forced into having these cesareans?

A policy of routine cesarean for breech does not allow women to decide what the acceptable risk/benefit trade-off is.