“Long Labors” from Australian Midwife
By Danell Swim
April 25, 2008
I have spent the past few days with a woman (hence no blog entries) and have had lots of time contemplating the modern obstetric attitude labour length and the active management .
Active management of labour was brought in initially by Odriscoll in 1973 as a means of speeding up labour. They had a busy unit and wanted to guarantee birth within 12 hours, they felt this would enhance the experience for the mother. The aims were not to decrease the section rate because in both Ireland and the UK at the time the rate was only 5%.
O’Driscoll wrote a letter published in the BMJ explaining his purposes. Even if you don’t agree with them they weren’t to save the lives of hundred’s of women and babies which appears to be the common approach of active management in Australia. O’Driscoll acknowledges the limitations and misinterpretations of his active management and seems to want to clarify the actions of his trial. Why has nobody paid attention to this?
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