New Guideline Recommends Allowing Women to Labor Longer to Help Avoid Cesarean
February 19, 2014
Washington, DC — Allowing most women with low-risk pregnancies to spend more time in the first stage of labor may avoid unnecessary cesareans, according to The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (The College) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM). In a jointly-issued Obstetric Care Consensus guideline, the new recommendations are targeted at preventing women from having cesareans with their first birth and at decreasing the national cesarean rate.
“Evidence now shows that labor actually progresses slower than we thought in the past, so many women might just need a little more time to labor and deliver vaginally instead of moving to a cesarean delivery,” said Aaron B. Caughey, MD, a member of The College’s Committee on Obstetric Practice who helped develop the new recommendations. “Most women who have had a cesarean with their first baby end up having repeat cesarean deliveries for subsequent babies, and this is what we’re trying to avoid. By preventing the first cesarean delivery, we should be able to reduce the nation’s overall cesarean delivery rate.”
(click link above to read on acog.org)
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