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

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

Opioid prescription for new mothers associated with an increased risk of serious opioid-related events

A new study from Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers finds that new mothers who receive opioids after uncomplicated vaginal births face an increased risk of serious opioid-related events regardless of the opioid dosage, a finding that could significantly impact care delivery.

26 Apr 2021

Despite advances, childbirth is not likely to become easier for women from a biological perspective

Despite advances in medicine and technology, childbirth isn't likely to get much easier on women from a biological perspective.

23 Apr 2021

Previously approved drugs starting points for COVID-19 therapeutics

Researchers in the United States have identified several clinically approved compounds that could be repurposed for the treatment and prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

11 Apr 2021

Stress incontinence surgery does not increased risk of pelvic cancers

Women undergoing surgery to treat stress urinary incontinence (SUI) are not at increased risk of developing pelvic cancers, according to a large-scale, population-based study in The Journal of Urology, Official Journal of the American Urological Association.

8 Apr 2021

Intermittent auscultation outperforms more modern methods at reducing cesarean sections

Intermittent auscultation, in which the baby’s heartbeat is monitored using a sonic aid or Doppler probe, outperforms more modern methods at reducing the number of emergency caesarean sections in labour, according to a new study led by researchers from the University of Warwick.

7 Apr 2021

Taking progestogens during high-risk pregnancy could reduce preterm birth

Taking progestogens - steroid hormones - during pregnancy could reduce the risk of preterm birth in high-risk single baby pregnancies, research has shown.

31 Mar 2021

Adverse childhood experiences linked to adolescents' delinquent behaviors

About 61% of Americans have had at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE), experts' formal term for a traumatic childhood event.

30 Mar 2021

Undocumented pregnant women in Finland receive inadequate prenatal care, study shows

Undocumented women in Finland access pregnancy care later than others. Yet, screening of infectious diseases at the early stages of pregnancy would be particularly important to these women, a new study carried out in Helsinki, Finland, shows.

18 Mar 2021

COVID-19 has increased stress levels in the U.S pregnant women

COVID-19 has created new problems for pregnant women in the United States, a group that already faced the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world even before the pandemic.

17 Mar 2021

Lifestyle intervention program helped reduce stress in low-income mothers

Overweight low-income mothers of young kids ate fewer fast-food meals and high-fat snacks after participating in a study - not because researchers told them what not to eat, but because the lifestyle intervention being evaluated helped lower the moms' stress, research suggests.

12 Mar 2021

Unbalanced progesterone may cause preterm or prolonged labor in some pregnant women

New research by the National Institutes of Health found that unbalanced progesterone signals may cause some pregnant women to experience preterm labor or prolonged labor.

11 Mar 2021

African American women have greater risk of stroke, death during pregnancy and childbirth

African American women have a significantly increased risk of stroke and death during pregnancy and childbirth or in the period right after birth, compared to the risk of stroke among white women, according to preliminary research to be presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2021.

11 Mar 2021

Pregnant women in Japan had higher levels of anxiety during COVID-19 pandemic

Pregnant women in Japan who responded to an online survey early in the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated higher levels of anxiety compared to women undergoing fertility treatments and to pregnant women in Iran.

11 Mar 2021

Uppsala Health Summit to focus on behavioral changes, antimicrobial resistance

Antimicrobial resistance is an urgent global threat to human and animal health. This year's Uppsala Health Summit, which will take place online on 15-18 March, will discuss how behaviour change across various sectors of society can slow down this worrying trend.

10 Mar 2021

Maternal diet may enhance immune systems of premature infants, study shows

Medical researchers have long understood that a pregnant mother's diet has a profound impact on her developing fetus's immune system and that babies -- especially those born prematurely -- who are fed breast milk have a more robust ability to fight disease, suggesting that even after childbirth, a mother's diet matters.

25 Feb 2021

Psychological variables account for anxiety and depression among pregnant women during COVID-19

Women who gave birth during the COVID-19 pandemic report having felt greater stress in the delivery process, and rate lower the quality of care received.

17 Feb 2021

New strategy to optimize the efficacy of neuropeptides for therapeutic applications

Dimerization (Note: combination of two identical or different molecules) of the human neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin can produce new types of bioactive molecules.

10 Feb 2021