Births through caesarean section have overtaken natural vaginal births in England for the first time, NHS data has revealed.

Last year, 45% of births in England were through caesareans, 44% were through natural vaginal births and 11% were assisted with instruments such as forceps or ventouse, according to the data published on Tuesday.

More than four in 10 caesareans, also known as C-sections, carried out by NHS England were elective, planned operations.

For women under the age of 30, the most common method of delivery was natural vaginal birth, and for women aged 30 and over caesareans were the most common.

Fifty-nine per cent of births for women aged 40 and over were through C-sections. In total, 20% of births in 2024-25 were planned caesareans and 25.1% were emergency, with both figures rising to the highest on record.

The data covers the period from the start of April 2024 to the end of March this year.

In total, there were 542,235 deliveries in NHS England hospitals during this time, down from 636,643 in 2014-15, and one in four births (23.9%) were to mothers aged over 35 years.

In 2023–24, there were 225,762 deliveries by C-section, which made up 42% of births, according to figures released last year. In 2014-15 deliveries by caesareans made up 26.5% of births.

The increase in caesarean births over the past decade has been attributed to the growing number of complex pregnancies and births, caused by factors including rising obesity rates and women waiting until they are older to have children. The proportion of spontaneous deliveries that do not involve drugs or other medical interventions has steadily declined in the last 10 years.

An audit of NHS maternity care, published in September, found that half of women having a baby in Britain now do so with the help of medical intervention. It found that the proportion of babies born by caesarean section across England, Scotland and Wales had risen from 25% in 2015-16 to 38.9% in 2023.

Donna Ockenden, one of the UK’s most senior midwives who is leading the biggest inquiry in NHS history into maternity failures in Nottingham, told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the rise in C-sections was a “complex” and “evolving picture over time”.

She said: “The thousands of women I’ve spoken to want a safe birth above everything else, so we should not vilify or criticise women who make those decisions.

“In the reality of today’s maternity services – where women are living in poverty, deprivation, they’ve got pre-existing illnesses – obstetricians, midwives, nurses can only do so much, and we don’t always do enough in all cases to optimise women’s health prior to pregnancy.”

Soo Downe, a professor of midwifery at the University of Lancashire, added: “In some cases women are going for caesarean sections as a kind of least worst option because they don’t really believe they’re going to have the kind of support they need to have a safe, straightforward, positive labour and birth in hospital.

“Or because their birth centres are being closed … or because they go into labour wanting a home birth and the midwife isn’t able to come to them because the midwife’s called somewhere else.

“But for some of them, it becomes the only choice on the table … and for other women, they choose a caesarean because they really want one, and that’s absolutely fine.”