Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
U.S. Women in Labor 2 Hours Longer than 50 Years Ago
I saw this today, and thought it was interesting.
U.S. Women in Labor Longer Than They Were 50 Years Ago
Friday, March 30, 2012
FRIDAY, March 30 (HealthDay News) -- American women today are spending about two hours more in labor during childbirth than women did 50 years ago, a new report says.
The report's authors said several factors helped to explain the longer labors.
"Older maternal age and increased BMI (body-mass index, a ratio of weight to height) accounted for a part of the increase. We believe that some aspects of delivery-room practice are also responsible for this increase," lead author Dr. Katherine Laughon, an epidemiologist with the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said during a Friday afternoon news conference.
For the study, Laughon's team collected data on nearly 40,000 women who gave birth between 1959 and 1966, and compared those findings with nearly 100,000 women who delivered between 2002 and 2008.
The researchers found women in the 21st century were in labor 2.6 hours longer for first births and two hours longer for subsequent births than women from the 1960s.
Mothers in the 2000s also were older, heavier and used painkillers more during labor, and were more likely to have a Cesarean delivery than women in the 1960s.
Other differences that might explain the increase reflect changes in later-stage delivery practices. For instance, in the 1960s the use of episiotomy (a surgical incision to enlarge the vaginal opening during delivery) and forceps (surgical instruments used to extract a baby) were more common, the researchers noted.
The use of epidural injections to ease the pain of delivery is more common now than 50 years ago. Epidurals were used in more than half of recent deliveries, compared with 4 percent of deliveries in the 1960s, the study authors said, adding that epidural anesthesia is known to increase delivery time.
The study also found that Cesarean deliveries are four times more common today than 50 years ago -- 12 percent vs. 3 percent.
"Women are in labor longer [today] because they are admitted [to the hospital] earlier," said Dr. Michael Cabbad, chairman of obstetrics/gynecology and chief of maternal/fetal medicine at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York City. "There is a tendency for women to come to the hospital in an earlier phase of labor because of fear of arriving too late."
When a women is admitted today, she is started on intravenous fluids and put in a bed, which slows down the labor process, Cabbad added.
The new report appears in the March 10 online edition of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
SOURCES: Michael Cabbad, M.D., chairman of obstetrics/gynecology and chief of maternal/fetal medicine at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York City; March 30, 2012, news conference with Katherine Laughon, M.D., Division of Epidemiology, Statistics, and Prevention Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; March 10, 2012, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, online
Re: U.S. Women in Labor 2 Hours Longer than 50 Years Ago
I just love that this was published on the two year anniversary of my 38 hour labor, lol.
LOL. Yes, more sleep indeed. Hope you get some soon.
And yet we spend 20 more hours planning it to the last detail.
Also, we let men in now. I'm just sayin . . . lolol
Click me, click me!
I had assumed this was an april fools article when I saw it.
Was the whole "twilight sleep" thing pre 1960's?
Joseph Henry was born at home on March 9, 2009
Nora Mae was born at home on October 30, 2011
I didn't say. Maybe someone with access to AJOG can see the full article where it probably says what the average labor in the 1950s was, and what the average is now.
This surprised me since the only people I know that spew C/S percentages think "The Business of Being Born" was the greatest "documentary" ever. They've always told me it was in the 30-40%, so this is much lower. Oddly this small quote makes me feel happy, especially since these people I know like to make me feel terrible because I failed at vaginal birth.
Labor sucks.
1st thing, screw the people that make you feel terrible.
2nd, I thought the numbers were higher too. This CDC link, shows it at 32% in 2010.
I was wondering that, too. Google says it stopped late 60s to early 70's. You can bet your arse I would have had a shorter labour if I'd been totally uninhibited.
Meredith, 6-1-06 and Alex, 11-5-09
Zeus and Bubba
Yup. This was exactly what I was thinking, the study seems really pointless as it stands.
Completely off topic and not sure if you know the answer, but if you have a VBAC is it still expected that the vaginal birth will be faster with your second child. Or it is only faster if you had a vaginal birth with your first?
Is this a bad thing? I agree it depends in where we decide labor begins. I'd rather have a "longer" safe and well executed labor then a fast shitty one. Its like the pushing thing. People always wanna push fast and hard but you gotta take your time so you don't rip. There are definitely advantages to not just trying to get the baby out as fast as you can.
Lol. I wish this was true. I pushed for over 3 hours and still got a 2nd degree tear. I guess I got too excited at the end...
Off to the beach
DS 7/18/2010
Handy 2.0 Due Early August
2011/2012 Races
12/17/2011 Christmas Caper 10K
2/11/2012 Have a Heart 5K
3/17/2012 DC RNR Half Marathon
4/22/2012 10M Parkway Classic
10/28/2012 Marine Corps Marathon
Lurker here, coming in from a link on another board. I work planning hospitals, and from what I understand, it's something like 12-15% are SCHEDULED c-sections, and the percentage climbs to around 30-35% when you factor in unscheduled or emergency c-sections. At least that was true at a few facilities I've worked with.
**congrats to my buddies GotMilk9 & Whippet8**
**TTC buddies with JennaHack & Whippet8**
Yes, compared to the first half of the 60s, before the baby boom ended and more women had access to the pill. So that stands to reason that a larger % of births are first time births? I didn't read if this was part of the study, but I'm pretty sure more women are giving birth outside of the hospital now than 50 years ago, so on a national level, that might skew the numbers a little.
Like others, I read this as partly reflecting the dramatic decrease in the use of episiotomies and forceps. I wonder where (geographically) they got their c/s information from, though. In my area, which they claim has a lower than national average, the hospitals are all around 20%. Where I delivered, which is the most med-free friendly and low intervention in my area of the state, the rate is still around 13%.
Hospitals are certainly not the labor factories that they were during the scopolomine era though. We think birth is medicalized now? Yeesh.
Oh, that is fantastic. This...this is wine. Yeah. Look what all these idiots are drinking. Look at these dicks! Obviously it's not really delicious, like hot chocolate or Coke, but for wine...brilliant.
Hmmm, they don't talk about baby conditions at all in this. Aren't babies larger now also? Maybe that adds to pushing time and therefore a longer labor also?
I agree that there are lots of factors to consider, but either way, women are gestating babies longer (closer to 41 weeks is the norm now) and labor is longer (by 2 hours according to this study), so it makes me wonder if these two are linked at all.
Are you united with the CCOKCs?
Oh, that is fantastic. This...this is wine. Yeah. Look what all these idiots are drinking. Look at these dicks! Obviously it's not really delicious, like hot chocolate or Coke, but for wine...brilliant.
These are my thoughts too. Also people tend to be more sedentary and overweight now, which could lead to less efficient labors. It is hard to take much away from this study.
Iris Victoria {9.13.08} Augusto Morgan {4.30.11}
I don't think the actual length of gestation is truly any longer, I think we just far more accurate pregnancy dating now then 40 years ago.
Maybe I missed it (I'm a little foggy today), but what are they considering the start of labor? First contractions? First regular contractions? Length of time in the hospital before someone hands you a baby?
Also, am I the only person who doesn't know how long they were in labor?
A general rule of thumb is that your body will act like a second timer up until the point you had your c/s, and then it will be like a first timer. So if you had a scheduled c/s and never labored, you can expect a longer labor like a FTM. If you had your c/s at 10 cm, you might have a fast labor but a long pushing phase (which is what happened to me). Of course there are always exceptions to this.
Iris Victoria {9.13.08} Augusto Morgan {4.30.11}
Since this study was looking at length of labor, did they omit scheduled cesareans (e.g. for breech presentation, placenta previa and planned repeat cesareans)? That would make sense and could account for a lot of the difference between their c/s rate and the CDC's.
Iris Victoria {9.13.08} Augusto Morgan {4.30.11}
That's a good point. My doctor didn't call it "labor" until it was active labor, and even then, it's hard to distinguish from early labor (all the definitions he gave for active labor were based on pain criteria for the contractions, which is subjective). I've got friends who talk about how long their labor was, and they start with the first contraction.
I don't know how long I was in labor exactly, either.