Planning for a family is no easy task. From battling “baby fever” to baby making, there are many aspects to consider.
When a woman goes into labor, she and the unborn child are monitored closely. In some cases, if labor is not progressing fast enough, doctors encourage a cesarean section. A new study at Ohio State shows a new tool may decrease the number c-sections in first time moms drastically.
The new tool
Researcher Jeremy Neal and Nancy Lowe believe a partograph, a printed graph on which clinicians plot the progress of dilation during labor, could create a more uniform diagnosis of dystocia, the technical term for an abnormally slow labor.
“Dystocia is known to be over-diagnosed, which leads to unnecessary intervention, including cesareans,” said Neal, an assistant professor of nursing at Ohio State.
“We can tackle this issue by giving dystocia a clinically meaningful definition. This would go a long way toward preventing unnecessary cesareans for first-time moms which would, in turn, increase their chances of having successful labors and vaginal births for second, third and fourth deliveries as well.”
Updating the labor data
Neal believes the current push for c-sections is based on old data and needs to be updated.
“Clinicians tend to have an expectation that change in the cervix during labor is linear, with a dilation rate of 1 centimeter per hour often being considered to be the slowest acceptable rate of cervical change,” said Neal, who also is a certified nurse-midwife
“However, these criteria are based on work started in the 1950s and ended in the 1970s that just doesn’t fit the labor patterns of women today, for whatever reason. Research from the past two decades shows us that labor is not typically linear and rates of cervical change from one centimeter to the next are commonly much slower than 1 centimeter per hour. Clinging to defunct dilation expectations leads to unnecessary interventions during labor.”
Neal and Lowe will continue to study this concept and hope partographs can be incorporated into a smartphone app for easy use.
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