Risks are associated with childbirth but more so with cesarean delivery. Women who give birth via cesarean section, for instance, are at risk of wound infections, severe blood loss that may require blood transfusion and problems with later pregnancies.
It is widely believed that inducing labor, raises a woman's risks for giving birth via c-section but a new study conducted by Khalid Khan, from the Queen Mary University of London in the United Kingdom, and colleagues, challenges this view.
For the study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) April 28, the researchers reviewed 157 studies published between 1975 and 2012 which involved over 31,000 births to determine whether the risks of giving birth via cesarean delivery is increased or reduced following induced labor.
The researchers found that inducing labor in pregnant women decreases their likelihood to give birth via cesarean section by 12 percent compared to when their doctors opt for a wait-and-see approach. The reduced risks for C-section, however, only apply for term and post-term pregnancy and not for preterm births.
"The risk of cesarean delivery was lower among women whose labor was induced than among those managed expectantly in term and post-term gestations. There were benefits for the fetus and no increased risk of maternal death," the researchers wrote.
The researchers also noted that while the drug prostaglandin E2, which is commonly used in the UK, Canada and the United States to induce delivery, is associated with reduced risks for abdominal delivery, other methods of labor induction such as the use of the hormone oxytocin and amniotomy, which involves the deliberate rupturing of the amniotic sac to speed up labor, do not reduce risks for C-section delivery.
The researchers also noted that cesarean birth is less likely to happen when labor is induced for both high risk and low risk pregnancies. Women whose labor was induced also had 50 percent reduced risks of fetal death. The newborn is also 14 percent less likely to be admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit.
Labor induction occurs in 20 percent of all births. Labor may be induced for a number of reasons including fetal distress, premature rupture of membrane and overdue pregnancy. Pregnant women with diabetes or suffer from preeclampsia, a condition characterized by high blood pressure after the 20th week of pregnancy, are also likely to be induced.
