The Daily Telegraph

Mothers ‘being rushed into having caesareans’

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Women should be given more time to give birth, the World Health Organisati­on has said.

The new advice rejects previous suggestion­s about the speed of a normal labour, saying the idea that a cervix should dilate at 1cm per hour was “unrealisti­c” and led to too many women having needless caesareans.

“It’s not a good benchmark, it’s not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing,” said Dr Olufemi Oladapo, a medical officer in WHO’S department of reproducti­ve health and research.

“What has been happening over the last two decades is that we are having more and more interventi­ons being applied unnecessar­ily to women.”

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