Better Pregnancy Outcomes With Midwives

In a review of data from 13 research trials involving 16,242 women, researchers have found that when a pregnant woman’s care provider is a midwife instead of the US standard multidisciplinary care, she is more likely to have a better outcome. Midwife care showed a lower likelihood of preterm birth and fewer interventions.

Midwives are awesome! One of the coolest findings was that women who were only under the care of a midwife were generally happier! Who knows if happiness is the cause or the result of the better pregnancy outcomes with midwives, but the findings mirror an older study that compared planned home births, midwife assisted births and physician assisted births. Guess who came out on top?

I digress…

Eight of the 13 trials in the new analysis involved low risk pregnancies, but the remaining five included women with high risk pregnancies.

While women with midwives were more likely to have a longer labor, (Tack on an extra half hour of labor for women with midwives.) I think we can all agree that a half hour is worth the following benefits…

Women who were under the care of midwives:

• Had fewer “assisted births.”
• Had fewer epidurals.
• Were less likely to have preterm birth.
• Were less likely to lose their babies before 24 weeks.
• Had fewer episiotomies.

An author of the review said that based on the data, all women should be offered a midwife rather than the current standard unless they have serious medical complications.

 

SOURCE