4. Member States shall take the necessary measures to ensure that fully paid additional maternity leave is granted in specific situations such as in the case of premature childbirth, stillbirth, caesarean section, children hospitalised at birth, children with disabilities, mothers with disabilities, teenage mothers, multiple births or births occurring within 18 months of the previous birth.

6. Calls on the Council and the Commission to expand the provision of maternal health services in the context of primary health care, based on the concept of informed choice, education on safe motherhood, focused and effective prenatal care, maternal nutrition programmes, adequate delivery assistance that avoids excessive recourse to caesarean sections and provides for obstetric emergencies, referral services for pregnancy, childbirth and abortion complications, and post-natal care and family planning;

5. Calls on the Council and Commission to expand the provision of maternal health services in the context of primary health care, based on the concept of informed choice, education on safe motherhood, focused and effective pre-natal care, maternal nutrition programmes, adequate delivery assistance that avoids excessive recourse to Caesarean sections and provides for obstetric emergencies, referral services for pregnancy, childbirth and abortion-related complications, and post-natal care and family planning;

18. Observes that many caesarean operations currently performed are not necessarily required on medical grounds and that as a result more caesareans are being performed upon demand at a time scheduled in advance, although considerable risk to mother and child is associated with such operations; observes likewise that the rising number of caesareans is costly to national health services; calls on the Member States therefore explicitly to draw attention to the disadvantages and risks associated with caesareans during preparations for birth and to have caesareans performed only when they are medically necessary; instructs the Commission ...[+++]furthermore to study this subject in order to ascertain the causes of the growing prevalence of caesareans;

J. whereas in 1985 the World Health Organisation recommended that the frequency of caesarean operations should not exceed 10-15%, in order to maintain low levels of infant and maternal mortality; whereas however since the early 1990s caesareans have rapidly been becoming more frequent in Europe, and in Germany, for instance, attained a rate of 26.7% in 2003,

offer HIV-infected women the option of delivering their child through a caesarean section (before labour and rupture of membranes), as this has been shown to reduce risk of MTCT;