Childbirth is one of nature's
greatest wonders. We live in an age where we expect a perfect outcome but it is but throughout history until just a couple of generations ago, childbirth was a most precarious event. Mercifully mortality has been reduced to just 2% compared to a century ago and we can now concentrate more on the outcome for the baby.
We are increasingly turning to the internet for information. Questions about health are amongst the more common reasons for Web searches. Medicine in general and obstetrics in particular are advancing at an ever increasing rate. There are many excellent text books and Web sites on pregnancy and its complications. There is no value in replication. Patients rightly wish to be involved in decisions about their care. There are often options. The purpose of this Web site is to present the background for decision making and to explore areas of current debate.
One of the priorities
of intrapartum care is to enable women to make informed choices regarding
their care or treatment. To do so, they require access to evidence-based
information, professional advice and counselling to help them in making
their choices. It
is imperative that all issues relating to the care of any woman in labour
are discussed in an open and informative manner, so that the decisions
reached reflect maternal preferences and priorities.
Continuous care of the mother in labour
has been shown to reduce caesarean section rates and the use of analgesia
significantly. The importance of one-to-one midwifery care has been
highlighted in a number of expert reports.RCOG
Healthy
women who have had an uncomplicated pregnancy should be offered and
recommended the best form of fetal monitoring for them (i.e. one that
strikes the right balance between the objective of maximising the detection
of potentially compromised babies and the objective of minimising the number
of unnecessary maternal interventions, such as caesarean section). These
objectives may conflict to some extent, since greater sensitivity in
detecting potentially compromised babies may be associated with greater
numbers of ?false positives? and hence unnecessary interventions.
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