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In the natural birth class I took with my husband when I was pregnant with our first child, the doula?who also pitched us hard on the benefits of eating placenta and doing nightly relaxation mantras?repeated over and over that if we planned to birth in a hospital (we did) and wanted to avoid a caesarean birth, we should always respond to any doctor?s suggestion of an intervention ?to speed things along? with an initial request for more time. Time, the doulas assured us, was usually all birthing women really needed.
According to a new study published in the March 2016 issue of The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, that doula was on to something. The study showed that one way to help women avoid a c-section is to simply let them spend more time pushing. It found that when women were given just one extra hour in the second stage of labour?the stage from full dilation to birth?c-section rates were cut in half. This is an important finding?c-sections involve risks for women and their babies, and have been on the rise in North America. In Canada the average total c-section rate was 27 percent in 2013, more than double the ideal 10-15 percent rate recommended by the World Health Organization.
The study looked at 78 first-time moms at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. They were randomly assigned to ?usual labour? or ?extended labour? groups. The women in the usual labour groups were allowed to spend three hours in the second stage...