Parents outraged after school application asks: 'Was your child delivered by C-section?'



School chiefs in California have come under fire for asking intimate questions about how its children were delivered during birth.

Parents hoping to enrol their children in the Dry Creek School District have to complete an application form that asks if their child was delivered naturally or by caesarean section.



Those mothers who tick the 'C-section' option are then asked to explain why the procedure was performed.

Strange questions: the Dry Creek School District has come under fire for asking prospective parents whether they gave birth naturally or via C-section

'Inappropriate': Heather, a mother in the district calls it an 'invasion of privacy'. She has tried to get an explanation for the past two weeks, to no avail

But parents in Roseville, California, who were presented with the form as they tried to enrol their children in school say the intimate questions are a breach of privacy.

Please explain: the application requires the parent to explain why they may have given birth via C-section

'I really don’t feel think the school asking if the child was delivered vaginally or by C-Section is appropriate,' a mother of two identified as Heather told the local CBS13 station.

'What’s next? This is an invasion of our privacy,' she said.

Heather said she had asked the school to explain their reasoning behind the invasive questions, but had yet to receive a reply.



She said the invasive questions were not relevant to getting her children enrolled at school.



School chiefs were also contacted by a reporter from CBS13, but no reply was forthcoming.



The question on the enrolment form asks parents to say whether their child was born by C-section.



A number of scientific studies in medical journals have concluded that the method of birth delivery cannot be linked to intelligence.



Cesarean deliveries have reached an all-time high in the U.S., with nearly one in three babies now delivered by C-section compared to one in five just a decade ago, according to the latest government figures.

Very invasive: numerous studies have found there to be no link between intelligence and the form in which a child was born

Almost 1.4 million newborns were delivered surgically in 2007 -- a 53% increase from the mid-1990s, when rates started to climb after remaining steady for several years.



Rates rose for both older and younger mothers across all racial groups and all regions of the U.S., making cesarean delivery the most commonly performed surgery in the nation.



The C-section rate increased by annually between 1996 and 2007, from a low of 21% to 32%.