Childbirth

When you are ready to have your baby, you'll go through labor. Contractions let you know labor is starting. When contractions are five minutes apart, your body is ready to push the baby out. During the first stage of labor, your cervix slowly opens, or dilates, to about 4 inches wide. At the same time, it becomes thinner. This is called effacement. You shouldn't push until your uterus is fully effaced and dilated. When it is, the baby delivery stage starts. Crowning is when your baby's scalp comes into view. Shortly afterward, your baby is born. The placenta that nourished the baby follows.

Breeched Birth: Caesarean Section or Vaginal Delivery?

Breech presentation is common in about 15% of pregnancies at 29 to 32 weeks.

Natural Childbirth

What is a Transverse Baby?

Anal Sphincter Injury During Childbirth

Active management of the third stage of labor

Heel Prick Test / Guthrie Test

Lithotomy Positioning

Evidence for Having a Water Birth

Water Birth Safety

What Happens When your Waters Break?

Assisted Birth: Forceps or Vacuum Delivery

Benefits and Risks of Forceps (Ventouse) Delivery

See more featured articles »

What do Contractions Feel Like?

Signs Labor Has Begun

Complications of the third stage of labor

Making a Birth Plan

How to Relieve Pain During Labor

The External Cephalic Version Process

Latest Childbirth News and Research

Research explores the mental health of new parents and importance of social support

New parents often find themselves with negative self-image and feel alienated from support networks, new research has found.

23 Jul 2021

Mindfulness training for pregnant women doubles the chance of natural birth

A short, group-based mindfulness training for pregnant women and their partners reduces the chance of a medically unnecessary cesarean birth by 50% and doubles the chance of a natural birth.

15 Jul 2021

As Congress wrestles with plans to expand Medicare, Becerra says any one will do

The Biden administration will support whatever expansions to Medicare Congress is willing to make, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Tuesday.

13 Jul 2021

How women in England faced childbirth in the COVID-19 pandemic

Pregnant women have suffered considerable uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only were the effects of the virus on the baby unknown, but social restrictions in place threatened their ability to plan their delivery experience or have their birthing partners with them. This is the focus of a new paper, which illustrates the need to provide proper guidance and support to pregnant women during such periods, especially allowing them to feel supported and in control of their childbirth experience.

8 Jul 2021

Mother-to-baby SARS-CoV-2 transmission in pregnancy possible but rare, says study

A new meta-analysis, released on the medRxiv* preprint server, suggests that, though possible, the virus is rarely transmitted to the newborn in real life. A scientific brief from the World Health Organization (WHO) in February 2021 describes three mechanisms by which the virus might be transmitted from the mother to the fetus or newborn.

7 Jul 2021

Risk-based computational models can predict spontaneous preterm childbirth

A new model could help predict the risk of impending preterm birth, avoiding the adverse and costly effects of overtreatment or misdiagnosis.

5 Jul 2021

Have maternal pre-pandemic stress levels influenced children’s mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic?

A recent study, published in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, assessed the role of maternal daily perceived stress on the mental health of children during the pandemic.

22 Jun 2021

New interactive resources launched to support the mental health of new mothers and fathers

On International Fathers' Mental Health Day, the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV), in partnership with Dr Ranjana Das and Dr Paul Hodkinson from the University of Surrey, is delighted to announce the launch of three new 'Factographics' interactive resources - designed to better support the mental health of new mothers and fathers.

21 Jun 2021

Study shows that natural selection can reverse evolution through sexual selection

Natural selection can reverse evolution that occurs through sexual selection and this can lead to better females, new research shows.

9 Jun 2021

Trying to avoid racist health care, Black women seek out Black obstetricians

In South Florida, when people want to find a Black physician, they often contact Adrienne Hibbert through her website, Black Doctors of South Florida.

7 Jun 2021

Maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection imprints immune response in the newborn

A new bioRxiv* preprint reports the immunological footprint in the newborn left by maternal infection with SARS-CoV-2 during pregnancy.

4 Jun 2021

Newsom wants to spend millions on the health of low-income mothers and their babies

Amid a pandemic that has pushed millions of mothers out of the workplace, caused fertility rates to plunge and heightened the risk of death for pregnant women, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic lawmakers are seeking a slate of health proposals for low-income families and children.

3 Jun 2021

Many new moms get kicked off Medicaid 2 months after giving birth. Illinois will change that.

The U.S. is the only industrialized nation in which the maternal death rate has been rising. Each year, about 700 deaths are due to pregnancy, childbirth or subsequent complications, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

3 Jun 2021

Women with HPV have elevated risk of preterm birth, shows study

Women carrying human papillomavirus (HPV) run an elevated risk of preterm birth, a University of Gothenburg study shows.

1 Jun 2021

New study launched to understand COVID impact on mental health in parents and babies

The COVID-19 pandemic turned the lives of many all over the world upside down. Nowhere has this been more obvious than the interactions between parents and children, beginning during pregnancy, over the past year of the pandemic. A new study from Oxford and Cambridge in the UK will explore the reality of changes in this area, and how they have impacted early human development.

26 May 2021

China makes remarkable progress in reducing number of maternal and infant deaths

China has made remarkable gains in reducing the number of women who die during childbirth and boosting child survival rates over the past 70 years, according to new review.

25 May 2021

Oxytocin-vasopressin circuit has distinct dynamics throughout embryonic development

The work, carried out by Pilar Madrigal and Sandra Jurado, from the UMH-CSIC Neurosciences Institute in Alicante, a joint center of the Spanish National Research Council and Miguel Hernández University, has been published in Communications Biology, a Nature group´s journal.

22 May 2021

Robust passive and active immunity found in infants born to COVID-19 positive mothers

A new study provides evidence that babies born to mothers who were COVID-19 positive two or more months before delivery are protected by maternal antibodies, besides mounting a robust immune response in case they contract the infection in the perinatal period.

5 May 2021

COVID-19 in pregnancy does not significantly increase respiratory illness in newborns, says study

A new study published in the journal JAMA offers reassuring evidence that infants born to mothers with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), or even asymptomatic infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), have little increase in respiratory symptoms over babies born to uninfected mothers.

4 May 2021

Study finds low risk of infection in babies born to mothers tested positive for SARS-CoV-2

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the Public Health Agency of Sweden have studied newborn babies whose mothers tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 during pregnancy or childbirth.

29 Apr 2021