Cochrane

What is the issue? Labour induction is a common procedure, carried out when it is judged to be safer for a baby to be born than to continue a pregnancy. When a woman who has had a caesarean in the past gives birth, current clinical practice supports helping her to have a vaginal birth. However, there is a higher risk of complications from induction ...

What is the issue? Women who have high blood pressure (hypertension) during pregnancy or who develop pre-eclampsia (high blood pressure with protein in the urine or other organ systems involvement, or both) can develop serious complications. Potential complications for the mother are worsening of pre-eclampsia, development of seizures and eclampsia, ...

What is the issue? If a pregnant woman's waters break without onset of contractions (prelabour rupture of membranes – PROM) at 37 weeks of pregnancy or more, there are two options: the first is for induction of labour so that the baby is born as soon as possible (planned early birth); or secondly, to wait for labour to start naturally (expectant management). Why ...

What is the issue? Sometimes it is necessary to bring on labour artificially in the third trimester because of safety concerns for the mother or her baby. Most commonly used cervical ripening or induction agents also cause uterine activity or contraction, which requires close monitoring of mother and baby within a hospital environment. Why is this ...

What is the issue? For a fetus who is not receiving enough oxygen or nutrients, the choice is to deliver the baby immediately (following a course of steroids to help the baby’s lungs to mature) or to wait as long as is thought to be safe. This review looked at which option was better for mothers and babies. Why is this important? Waiting allows ...

What is the issue? Babies who are very large (or macrosomic, weighing over 4000 g when born) can have difficult and occasionally traumatic births. One suggestion to try to reduce this trauma has been to induce labour early, before the baby grows too big. The estimation of the baby's weight is difficult before birth and not very accurate. Clinical ...

What is the issue? What care should be given to babies who are thought to be coping poorly towards the end of pregnancy (beyond 37 weeks)? A baby may be in this situation because the placenta is no longer functioning well and this means the baby may be short of nutrition or oxygen. We asked in this Cochrane review if it is better to induce labour ...

In this review, researchers from The Cochrane Collaboration examined a comparison between the Bishop score and any other method for checking pre-induction cervical ripening in women admitted for induction of labour. The Bishop score is the traditional method of determining the readiness of the cervix to open (dilate) before labour induction. It also ...

What is the issue? Identical twins who share the same amniotic sac in the uterus are called monoamniotic twins. The amniotic sac is the bag of waters (amniotic fluid) surrounding the baby. Monoamniotic twins are different from the majority of identical twins, who are separated from each other in their own amniotic sac, with their own amniotic fluid. Pregnancies ...

When a woman has had a previous caesarean birth and requires induction of labour in a subsequent pregnancy there are two options for her care, elective repeat caesarean or planned induction of labour. Both forms of care have benefits and risks associated with them. There were no randomised controlled trials to help women, their partners and their caregivers ...