American women are taking around 2 ½ hours more to give birth
these days than women did five decades ago, according to a fresh
report. A team of researchers led by Dr. Katherine Laughon, an
epidemiologist with the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National
Institute of Child Health & Human Development, gathered data on
as many as 40,000 women who delivered between 1959 and 1966, and
compared the data around 100,000 women who gave birth between
2002 and 2008. Researchers found that the typical first-time
mother in America is now taking 6 1/2 hours to deliver, while
her counterpart five decades ago labored for hardly 4 hours.
Researchers held older maternal age and increase in body-mass
index (BMI), a ratio of weight to height, responsible for a part
of longer labors. Explaining the reasons for longer labors, Dr.
Laughon said, "Older maternal age and increased BMI accounted
for a part of the increase. We believe that some aspects of
delivery-room practice are also responsible for this increase."
The longer labors will pro