Mothers-to-be will also accept greater physical risks than clinicians to avoid medical intervention, researchers have found.

Experts said that many doctor's view could be "biased" by their experiences in dealing with complex deliveries.

For the study, researchers asked 102 pregnant women as well as 341 midwives, obstetricians and other doctors what complications would make them decide on a Caesarean section.

Asked about a range of potential problems, in each category the women were far less likely to plump for the operation than their midwives or doctors, the study, reported in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG), shows.

At the moment around one in four babies in Britain is delivered by Caesarean.

That figure is well above the World Health Organisation's recommendation that only around 15 per cent of births should be delivered in this way.

 

Catherine Turner, from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, Australia, who led the research, said: "Our study found that pregnant women were more likely to aim for a vaginal delivery, and they accept a higher threshold of risks from vaginal delivery when compared with clinicians."

Professor Philip Steer, the editor in chief of the BJOG, said: "This indicates that experiencing labour and attempting a normal birth are two very important priorities in women's decision-making.

"It may also indicate that doctors are biased by their inevitable involvement in complex cases, or labours where things have gone wrong."

Earlier this year an official report warned that too many women in Britain were giving birth in understaffed wards and were being left to have their babies alone because of a shortage of midwives.