A baby born in parts of northern New Brunswick is nearly twice as likely to have been delivered by caesarean section than babies in other parts of the province, a statistic that worries the province's Advisory Council on the Status of Women.

Half the babies born in the province's northwest in the last year arrived by caesarean birth, a surgical procedure traditionally reserved for cases when a natural, vaginal birth could endanger the life of the mother or child.

The Restigouche Health Authority reported the highest rate in New Brunswick, with one in every two births happening via c-section.

That rate was much lower in the Beausejour Health Authority in the south of the province — where officials reported just one in five.

That difference worries Rosella Melanson, executive director of the province's Advisory Council on the Status of Women. 

"This is happening without anybody looking into why there would be such regional differences," she said. "What are the implications for the babies and the mothers?"

C-section rates are dropping at the Acadie-Bathurst health authority, located right next door to the Restigouche health region. The Acadie Bathurst authority shoots for only one in four C-section births.

Dr. Jean-Pierre Arseneau in Bathurst says there are simple ways to encourage more natural births and says there is a direct connection to a lack of family doctors and high rates of C-section births. 

"I feel that if there's more family doctors in the region to support the gynecologists, you have a better chance for an easier outcome for the C-section rate to go down."

The northern region of the province has long had difficulties attracting enough family doctors to care for its bilingual population.

Despite that, the Health Department is not concerned differences between regions. Spokeswoman Johanne Leblanc says she can't explain the different rates, and says it's a personal decision made between the individual patients and their doctors.

Across the province, approximately 29 per cent of babies are born through a C-section. That number is up from 22 per cent in the 1990s.