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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 [...]

When it comes to comparing outcomes with a midwife versus a doctor, research shows that in women with uncomplicated pregnancies, midwives are the better bet. Let’s look at the details of a recent [...]

“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 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 [...]

If you’ve ever wondered how much could be accomplished if a hospital made a concerted effort to reduce cesareans—and not because an insurance company held a metaphorical gun to its head—this [...]

A study in the most recent issue of Birth provides eye-opening illumination on non-medical reasons for high cesarean rates (Kennedy 2016). Investigators at Yale’s med-school affiliated hospital [...]

“The great tragedy of Science: the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.” Thomas Huxley Reverberating through the internet is an article by a group of scientists theorizing that [...]

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 [...]

Many recommendations in “Intrapartum care: care of healthy women & their babies during childbirth,” the latest version of National Institute for Health & Care Excellence [...]