Background: Cesarean section has been progressively increasing in Brazil and worldwide.Among the factors associated with this event stands out a prior cesarean delivery. Although most deliveries in women with a prior cesarean delivery is surgical, authors have demonstrated high levels of vaginal births after cesarean -VBAC with low incidence of complications. Given the alarming increase in cesarean rates, this study aims to identify the proportion and profile of mothers with repeat cesarean delivery -RCD in the State of São Paulo, in 2012. Methods: Data from Live Birth's Information Systems were linked to the National Health Establishments Registration. The results about the characteristics of mothers with RCD were analyzed according to characteristics of pregnancy, newborn and type of maternity hospital. Data were presented in the form of proportion measures (frequencies), with differences between variables of interest verified by the proportion and average tests (5% significance level). Results: 273 329 live births of mothers with at least one previous child were studied. 43% of these were born by RCD and 7.4% by PVAC. Mothers who underwent RCD are older and more highly educated and newborn infants in this group had a lower incidence of low birth weight. The beginning of prenatal care in the first trimester and the realization of 7 or more prenatal visits was more frequent in the RCD group.Early term was the most frequent rating for gestational age born by RCD. In contrast, newborns by vaginal delivery had greater proportions of late term than those by repeat cesarean. The RCD was more common in hospitals not affiliated with the Unified Health System -UHS (44.1%). In these, the majority (54.3%) of newborn had gestational age of early term. Only the UHS group achieves a better proportion of full term (46.5%), however, this group has the highest frequency of late terms (10.9%). Conclusion: The high repeat cesarean rates, especially in the private sector, highlight the need for improvements in childbirth care model in São Paulo.