At Valley Baptist Medical Center in Brownsville, Texas, doctors performed C-sections on half of all women with low-risk pregnancies — first-time mothers at full term, carrying a single baby positioned head-down — on average, in a seven-year period.
That's double the low-risk C-section rate of the next closest hospital, less than 5 miles away.
The contrast isn't unique to the Rio Grande Valley. Across the country, neighboring hospitals deliver babies at vastly different C-section rates — even when controlling for factors like maternal age, health complications, and whether a hospital treats high-risk pregnancies.
Business Insider spent months compiling C-section data from 29 states and Washington, DC, analyzing rates at 1,744 hospitals that collectively deliver around 70% of babies born in the US each year. The result: the first comprehensive, publicly searchable map of hospital C-section rates across the country.
How to use the map
Search by hospital name, city, state, or ZIP code to see C-section rates at hospitals near you. Click on any hospital to compare its rates with nearby facilities.
Hospitals change ownership — and names — frequently. Business Insider used the hospital name provided by each state department of health. Hospital names in our database may have since changed.
The table shows whether each hospital performs overall C-sections at higher, lower, or similar rates compared to the next closest hospital. Color coding indicates whether a hospital's rate falls above or below the national average for overall, first-time, or low-risk C-section rates in Business Insider's dataset.
For states that didn't provide low-risk C-section data, the map displays first-time rates. If neither metric was available, it shows overall rates.
What the map shows
The map displays three types of C-section rates for over 1,700 hospitals:
Overall rates include all C-sections, whether a woman is undergoing her first surgery or has had the procedure before.
First-time rates track C-sections performed on women giving birth for the first time — a critical metric since a first C-section almost always leads to more surgeries in later pregnancies.
Low-risk rates measure C-sections performed on women with these lowest-risk pregnancies. Maternal health experts consider this the most authoritative metric for comparing hospitals, since these women are the least likely to need surgery to safely deliver.
The map reveals dramatic variation. Hospital C-section rates swing from as low as 4% overall at a hospital in Alaska to as high as 62% overall at a hospital in Florida.
Business Insider identified 158 hospitals with average low-risk C-section rates at least 25% higher than their nearest neighbor.
Why hospital choice matters
Multiple studies show that one of the biggest risk factors for undergoing a medically unnecessary C-section is the hospital where a woman delivers — even when accounting for maternal age, race, health, income, and whether a hospital specializes in high-risk births.
Dozens of obstetricians, midwives, and labor nurses told Business Insider that while C-sections are often lifesaving, concerns for maternal health aren't the only influences driving surgery rates. They cited fear of lawsuits, understaffing, and indirect financial incentives; C-sections are more profitable and cost-effective than vaginal deliveries.
The consequences are serious. Each additional C-section a woman undergoes increases her risk of severe complications like placenta accreta, a life-threatening condition that almost always requires a hysterectomy to prevent hemorrhage.
The data gap
Not all states have data. Many hospitals don't publicly disclose their C-section rates. Eleven states would not produce data identifying individual hospitals, citing confidentiality policies or saying they don't track the information. Twenty-eight states required formal public records requests, sometimes charging fees reaching $1,500.
Read more about how Business Insider collected hospitals' C-section data here.