A recent multi-country analysis of the average pregnancy length and timing of birth in the US, England, and the Netherlands suggests that the US could enhance maternity care outcomes by reducing medical interventions during childbirth. The maternal and infant mortality rates in the United States
is shedding light on the possible impact of hospital organizational structures and staffing in US maternity care on the birthing process and adverse birth outcomes., compared gestational age patterns and timing of home and hospital births in three high-income countries with differing maternity care models: the US, which heavily relies on obstetricians and clinical interventions, and England and the Netherlands, which primarily use midwives for low-intervention care.
In all three countries, the researchers also examined birth timing by hour of the day for home and vaginal births at the hospital, and then repeated this analysis, limiting the comparison to hospital-based vaginal births without interventions such as induction or labor augmentation that could possibly alter the timing.
But in the US, there was a noticeable difference in birth timing between the two settings: births at home peaked in the same early morning hours as home births in other countries. By contrast, hospital-based births—even those with no interventions that could affect the natural pattern of timing—largely occurred during standard working hours for clinical staff, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“Our multi-country analysis shows that the US is an outlier in gestational age distribution and timing of low-intervention hospital births,” says study lead and corresponding author Dr. Eugene Declercq, professor of community health sciences at BUSPH.
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