A story by NPR looks at how profit impacts cesarean births.  The study shed some light on how money impacts our lives from the very first breath we take.

As reported, researchers hypothesized that doctors may opt for a more lucrative C-section if the mother doesn't know any better, and to find out they compared birth mothers who were also doctors to those who weren't, and looked at how many in each category delivered their children naturally.  Doctors, the researchers reasoned, would resist a surgical procedure that wasn't medically necessary more often than anyone with average knowledge.

Despite the fact that the physician-mothers received a C-section ten percent less often, the study does not suggest that doctors are consciously pushing for profitable procedures.  Instead, its authors believe that the motivations are subconscious and subtle.

What is clear is that 1 out of 3 children are delivered by the scalpel in the United States today, and the reasons for altering our first rite of passage are not always based on medicine alone.