• Cesarean section and preterm birth: A systematic review study
  • Nasim Sadat Pajohanfar,1,* Saeede Mehrabadi,2
    1. Department of Midwifery, Faculty of Medicine, Student workgroup of Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Gonabad University of Medical Sciences, Gonabad, Iran.
    2. Department of Midwifery, Department of Midwifery, School of medical, Sabzevar University of Medical Sciences, Sabzevar, Iran


  • Introduction: Premature birth is the common cause of neonatal mortality and childhood disability. Preventing preterm birth is a priority worldwide, albeit the exact cause is poorly understood. A large number of studies have suggested that there may be an association between cesarean delivery and subsequent preterm birth as a result of poor outcomes of cesarean sections.
  • Methods: This review was conducted to obtain relevant studies from the English databases Pubmed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Persian databases Iran Medex, SID, and Magiran with the English and Persian keywords cesarean section and preterm birth with all possible search combinations.
  • Results: Out of 2641 articles, 10 cohort studies were included based on the study criteria. 10 studies were of high quality and 4 studies were of medium quality according to the STROBE index. In general, The sample size of studies which were carried out from 2000 to 2020 ranged from about 30000 to 8000000. Our analysis showed that, cesarean section can increase the rate of preterm birth in following pregnancies.
  • Conclusion: A history of a previous cesarean section can lead to an increasing preterm birth rate in the subsequent pregnancy.
  • Keywords: Cesarean section, preterm birth, premature, cesarean delivery