Induced labor may reduce the risk for C-section
Labor is the most critical time of a woman’s life. With the advancement of medicine and healthcare labor can be stimulated for some medical reasons. This labor can be generated artificially by a number of methods and is called as Induced labor. This process gives a start to the natural labor and lowers the chances and risk of a Cesarean delivery. The researchers have said that doctors induce labor in one out of five births. This is a new finding for the doctors who normally follow the wait and watch approach. This research was done by the Queen Mary University in London and it was lead by the Khalid Khan. This group of doctors analyzed the 157 cases which involved more than 31,000 births and came to the conclusion that the induced labor lowered the risk of C-Section by 12%. This induced labor works for the positive of a woman when she is on the verge of going into a Cesarean.
This induced labor is done in many different ways and there are many reasons why the labor is kick-started. The common reasons are when the mother demands it, if the mother has a medical condition called as the pre-eclampsia or if the baby is at risk due to the prolonged labor. Before this research was done, it was a myth that the induced labor makes a Cesarean instead of a natural birth. There are many medicines that are used during the induced labor that reduces this risk. Depending on the medicine used by the doctor, the stimulated labor can be safe or some cases even after the labor is induced a Cesarean can be done. A drug named Prostaglandin E2 is used in inducing labor and is used commonly in the United States, UK and Canada. The contents in these medicines were more likely to affect the body and helped lower the risk. But drugs like Oxytocin and Amniotomy are also widely used and it has been observed that they didn’t add to the benefit of lowering the risk.
There are other methods that are also used to induce labor and the common ones are rupturing the membrane and starting a drug called as Oxytocin. The induced labor in women and the baby birth are closely related and the baby’s who are born with an induced labor have a lower risk of dying and no more medication is needed in the neonatal unit of the hospital which is required after the C-Section. This survey and its findings have been very useful and have lowered the death rate of the women during childbirth, which is very low in the Western Nations. This research will hardly affect the practice of an Ob-Gyn in the United States, Canada and UK, but the way people look at it will change.
It is best advised that if the induced labor is to be done through medications, then it is important to have a discussion with the woman and her family. The doctor and the family need to understand what is good for the family and the child and then the decision should be made wisely.
