Labor and Birth Care

Routine continuous electronic fetal monitoring, a.k.a., cardiotocography, during labor continues to be the norm in labor & delivery units despite being a colossal failure, and the obstetric [...]

Technology does not enhance a natural process that is working. It can only mar or destroy it.— David Stewart The Five Standards for Safe Childbearing Immediate umbilical cord clamping perfectly [...]

“Plenty of IV Fluids May Make Childbirth Safer, Easier,” enthuses the Philadelphia Inquirer, over a systematic review (a “study of studies” on a particular topic) finding that infusing IV fluids [...]

A Lancet commentary trying to explain away the findings of a trial of computerized interpretation of fetal monitoring tracings popped up in CBU’s Google alerts, but we get ahead of ourselves. [...]

A Lamaze International internal e-newsletter points us to a new systematic review, meaning a study of studies on a particular issue, of nutritive oral intake vs. ice chips or water alone. In the [...]

Abstract: Obstetrician-gynecologists . . . can help women meet their goals for labor and birth by using techniques that are associated with minimal interventions and high rates of patient [...]

Italian obstetricians report that replacing standard management of slow labor with a physiologic approach greatly reduced cesarean deliveries and the use of other medical interventions in [...]

The Lancet has devoted an issue to maternal health that includes a systematic review of maternity care practice guidelines entitled: “Beyond too little, too late and too much, too soon: a pathway [...]

The Leapfrog Group, which collects data on a voluntary basis from hospitals and compares results with national standards in order to evaluate quality of care, opens its 2015 report on U.S. [...]

The current issue of Midwifery Matters summarizes a study of the effects of having the baby skin-to-skin after birth and breastfeeding initiation soon after birth on postpartum blood loss of 500 [...]