NPR

Pregnancy Debate Revisited: To Induce Labor, Or Not?

Young women with simple pregnancies can safely ask a doctor to induce labor, a study finds. It doesn't increase their risk of needing a C-section after all and can even offer potential benefits.
Inducing labor at 39 weeks may involve IV medications and continuous fetal monitoring. But if the pregnancy is otherwise uncomplicated, mother and baby can do just fine, the latest evidence suggests.

Healthy women with normal pregnancies can opt to have labor induced without worrying that the decision will make a cesarean section more likely, according to a major study published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.

Obstetricians currently induce labor when a delivery has failed to progress, or if a woman is far overdue for giving birth. But when women who have no medical need for induced labor have talked to their doctors, "We've been saying, 'Well you know one thing you need to know is it does increase the, an obstetrics researcher at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

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