To compare the mode of delivery between women born in France and migrants.

The study was a retrospective, observational, single-center study conducted at the university maternity unit in Caen. All women who gave birth in 2008 or 2014 were included. Women with multiple pregnancies and women whose pregnancies ended before 22 weeks of gestational age were excluded. The pre-existing characteristics at the time of pregnancy, mode of delivery and postpartum were collected from the University Hospital’s medical and administrative computer database. We first compared women born in France to those born abroad with regard to the characteristics of mode of delivery for 2008, then for 2014. Secondly, we compared migrant women between 2008 and 2014 to see if the change in the migration profile was associated with a change in the mode of delivery.

Of the 3038 and 3001 women included in 2008 and 2014 respectively, 272 and 385 women were migrants. We observed a significant decrease in the number of spontaneous labors (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 0.5 [0.4-0.6]) with a significant increase in emergency cesarean sections before (aOR 2.1 [1.4–3.0]) and during labor (aOR 2.2 [1.6–3.2]) among women born in sub-Saharan Africa compared to non-migrants. And we showed a higher risk of cesarean section prior to labor (aOR 1.2 [1.01–1.4]) and a significant decrease in cesarean section during labor (aOR 0.8 [0.7-0.99]) in 2014 compared to 2008.

We observed a significant increase in all types of Cesarean sections among women born abroad compared to those born in France, especially in the subgroup of women born in sub-Saharan Africa.