TEHRAN — The number of cesarean sections to deliver babies has dropped by 11 percent in Iran since launching the healthcare reform plan in the country in May 2014, the health minister has said.

However, the number is still big as some 40 percent of women choose C-section over natural birth on average, ISNA news agency quoted Hassan Qazizadeh-Hashemi as saying.

“We are determined to cut the number to some 25 percent same as developed European and North American countries,” Qazizadeh-Hashemi highlighted.

Currently [in order to promote natural births and] minimize the side-effects of C-section both for the mother and child hospitals are credited with the number of the natural births they report, he pointed.

Iran’s healthcare reform plan is a scheme aiming at decreasing the out-of-pocket expenses for the patients, promoting natural birth, supporting underprivileged patients suffering from rare or incurable diseases, etc. which is being conducted in Iran currently since the beginning of the current administration.

MQ/MG