Scheduled Deliveries Raise Risks for Mothers
As the number of scheduled deliveries increases, it is important for physicians and mothers-to-be to understand the risks associated with elective induction.
Inducing labor without a medical reason is associated with negative outcomes for the mother, including increased rates of cesarean delivery, greater blood loss and an extended length of stay in the hospital, and does not provide any benefit for the newborn. The new findings, published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine, only apply to women having their first child, and may not pertain to women having their second or third child.
“The benefits of a procedure should always outweigh the risks. If there aren’t any medical benefits to inducing labor, it is hard to justify doing it electively when we know it increases the risks for the mother and the baby,” said Christopher Glantz, MD, MPH, study author and professor of Maternal Fetal Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
In the past decade, scheduled deliveries have become commonplace, with physicians making elective inductions part of their routine obstetric care. Study authors cite social reasons, such as convenience and patient requests to deliver with “their” physician, for the ongoing increase in purely elective inductions. But while physicians and patients alike may assume that inducing labor is harmless, it can in fact lead to more problems.
“As a working professional and a mother, I know how tempting it can be to schedule a delivery to try to get your life in order, but there is a reason that babies stay in the womb for the full term,” said Loralei Thornburg, MD, one of the study’s authors.
In their analysis of 485 women who delivered their first child between January and December of 2007, researchers found that approximately 34% of women who opted for elective induction of labor ultimately had a cesarean section, while only 20% of women who labored naturally underwent a cesarean delivery.
Women who were induced had more bleeding—even after taking cesarean deliveries into account—and stayed in the hospital longer than women who delivered vaginally. Study authors calculated that for every 100 women who undergo elective induction, they spend an additional 88 days in the hospital compared to the same number of women who labor spontaneously.
“Counseling women to steer clear of an elective induction can be challenging, but the bottom line is that medical reasons trump social reasons,” said Eva Pressman, MD, director of Maternal Fetal Medicine at the Medical Center. “If physicians are armed with information about the risks associated with elective induction they have a better chance of convincing their patients to avoid this route.”
While scheduled deliveries present multiple risks for the mother, researchers also found that they did not improve the health of newborns either. When women were induced, their babies were more likely to need oxygen immediately following delivery, and were more likely to require specialized care.
As opposed to women having their first baby, women who have already had a child may actually respond more favorably to induction. “If you’ve delivered once before, your body knows the drill and can do it again,” said Glantz.
Though elective inductions are not outside the standard of care, physicians should be cognizant of the associated risks and communicate these risks to women considering the procedure. “Past research has shown that inducing labor early without a legitimate medical reason is risky, and this study further validates these findings” said Thornburg.
