Latest Midwifery Stories

Cesarean births that occur too early may increase infants' risk of future health complications, researchers warned on Wednesday. The normal length of human gestation is 39 or 40 weeks, however doctors found that more than half of all C-section births are done by choice and one third (36 percent) are performed too early. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) claim that C-section operations are safe at 39 weeks, but many deliveries are being performed as early as 37...

Winter babies are, on average, less educated, less intelligent, less healthy and lower paid than people born in other seasons, U.S. researchers said. Kasey Buckles and Daniel Hungerman of the University of Notre Dame point out that a large body of previous research consistently has found that people born in December, January and February face socioeconomic disadvantages. Buckles and Hungerman analyzed U.S. census data and birth certificates to determine if the typical woman giving birth in...

U.S. researchers say their study revealed there's a very tiny window between 39 and 40 weeks where baby outcomes are optimal. Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine found that babies delivered by elective Caesarean section before 39 weeks of pregnancy -- to mothers who previously had an elective C-section -- are much more likely to have serious health problems than newborns delivered under the same circumstances at 39 weeks. The study, published in...

A British obstetrician is routinely being flown more than 11,800 miles to the Australian state of New South Wales due to a doctor shortage, an activist says. What Women Want founder Justine Caines said rather than waste money on flying Dr. David Hodgson 11,806 miles from London, state healthcare officials should look into the practice of midwifery, the Sydney Daily Telegraph said. It just seems like such an expensive solution when a midwifery model of care could be developed, Caines said....

Pregnant women who did water aerobics had easier deliveries and asked for less pain-killing medicine than women who didn't, a Brazilian study said Thursday. About half of 71 expectant mothers in the study participated in three 50-minute water aerobic sessions a week over the course of their pregnancies, the study by a team from the State University of Campinas in Sao Paulo, Brazil, reported in the journal Reproductive Health. While time in labor remained the same between the two groups, only...

A SENIOR care home director has been struck off after admitting shredding vital patient documents. Elaine Cowling replaced them with forgeries. Cowling, of Larbert, Stirlingshire, blamed her bosses for pressuring her. A Care Commission report said the Arnothill House nursing home in Falkirk should be run with a nurse-patient ratio of one to four, instead of the one to seven it then had. She said: "I was under pressure to come up with a case against the care commission's one-to-four. "My...

A U.S. study suggests overuse of cesarean section and other birthing interventions increase health risks and costs. The study, released Wednesday by the Childbirth Connection, The Reforming States Group, and the Milbank Memorial Foundation, said more than 31 percent of U.S. births are by cesarean section, increasing birth costs by more than $2.5 billion per year. "The excess cesareans buy no reduction in maternal and newborn deaths," the report said. The study suggests cesareans cause...

Over 31% of US births are now by cesarean section, although a 5% to 10% rate is best for mothers and babies. The extra cost is well over $2.5 billion per year. The excess cesareans buy no reduction in maternal and newborn deaths. But they cause unneeded exposure to the dozens of adverse effects more common with c-sections. This is just the most striking example of how health care provided to mothers giving birth exposes them to avoidable harm and expense. These conclusions are found in...

By Rita Rubin Childbirth is the leading reason for hospitalization in the USA and one of the top reasons for outpatient visits, yet much maternity care consists of high-tech procedures that lack scientific evidence of benefit for most women, a report says today. U.S. hospital charges for maternal and newborn care jumped from $79 billion in 2005 to $86 billion in 2006, the authors write. More than $2.5 billion a year is spent on unnecessary C-sections, which now represent nearly a third of all...

By Rita Rubin It's a problem seen throughout health care, but it might be of particular concern when the patient is a healthy pregnant woman: the overuse of tests and potentially risky procedures that, at best, might benefit only a limited number of patients, and the underuse of proven techniques with few or no known drawbacks. A new report, "Evidence-Based Maternity Care: What It Is and What It Can Achieve," lays out the good and the bad. It will be posted at 10 a.m. today at...