Doctors encouraged against rushing labor

New C-section guidelines issued


U.S. obstetricians are being told to show more patience in the delivery room.


“Labor takes a little longer than we may have thought,” said Dr. Aaron Caughey, who co-authored the guidelines for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).

The recommendations were being published jointly on Thursday by two groups of pregnancy specialists — ACOG and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine — amid growing concern that C-sections are overused.

Nearly 1 in 3 women in the U.S. gives birth by cesarean. The figure is higher in countries like Brazil and China.

The World Health Organization warns against unnecessary surgeries, saying that while there is no ideal C-section rate, it should hover between 10 and 15 percent.

C-sections can be life-saving for mother or baby, but they also can be done for convenience or fear of lawsuits, and the surgery can bring some serious health risks. And having one cesarean greatly increases the chances that a subsequent pregnancy will end in one, too.

One of the main reasons for a first-time C-section is labor that is progressing too slowly, ACOG’s analysis found.

How long should labor take? There is no clear-cut deadline, and every woman is different, stressed Caughey, obstetrics chairman at the Oregon Health and Sciences University.

“My patients ask this every day,” Caughey said. He tells them it can “run the gamut from six hours long, start to finish, to three and four days” at the other extreme.


So the obstetricians’ group took a detailed look. Among the recommendations for otherwise low-risk mothers and their babies:

Don’t order a C-section just because the first and longest phase of labor is prolonged. This so-called latent phase is when contractions are mild and far apart, and the mother’s cervix is barely dilated. Historically, doctors considered it stalled if it lasted longer than 20 hours for a first-time mom, or 14 hours for other mothers.

“Active labor” begins later than once thought, not until the cervix is dilated 6 cm. Active labor is when contractions become stronger and more frequent, and the cervix begins to dilate more rapidly until the woman eventually is ready to push. Doctors once thought active labor began when the cervix was dilated 4 cm, but recent research shows that dilation remains pretty slow until reaching the new threshold.

That is an important change because many doctors won’t admit women to the hospital until they are in active labor.

“As soon as someone is admitted to the hospital, they’re kind of on the clock,” Caughey said.

If women aren’t too tired, allow them to push at least two hours if they have delivered before, three hours if it is their first baby. They may push longer if they had an epidural as long as the doctor can see progress.


The advice shouldn’t be a surprise to doctors who have been paying attention to recent research about labor times, but it is hard to predict how quickly they will change long-term practices, Caughey said.

Some women’s groups have long warned that rushed labor was fueling cesarean sections, and Lamaze International welcomed the new guidelines and said mothers-to-be need to know them, too.