Planned and unplanned cesareans are not the same operation
The risks, the recovery and the emotional aftermath all differ.
A cesarean scheduled weeks in advance, performed on a rested woman who has not labored, is a different event from one decided at three in the morning after eighteen hours of labor.
Unplanned cesareans after labor carry more infection risk. In a randomized trial of women having a cesarean during labor or after their membranes broke, 12.0% of the placebo group developed an infection within six weeks. They also carry a higher chance of the baby's head being wedged deep in the pelvis, which complicated 11.3% of emergency cesareans in one UK cohort.
Planned cesareans before labor carry more newborn breathing problems, because labor helps clear fluid from the lungs. In a series of 33,289 term births, respiratory problems occurred in 35.5 per 1,000 births after a cesarean before labor and 12.2 per 1,000 after a cesarean during labor.
Trauma symptoms afterward are also more common when the cesarean was unplanned. In a study of nearly 2,800 women across 27 hospitals, 9.0% had post-traumatic stress symptoms two months after a cesarean, and labor that was induced before the cesarean was one of the factors that raised the risk.