Inducing labor avoids cesarean for some moms

Move over, Mother Nature. First-time moms at low risk of complications were less likely to need a cesarean delivery if labor was induced at 39 weeks instead of waiting for it to start on its own, a big study found. Their babies fared better, too.

The results overturn the longtime view that inducing labor raises the risk for a C-section, and prompted two leading OB-GYN doctor groups to say it’s now reasonable to offer women like those in the study that option.

But only certain pregnant women qualify, and the study did not track how inducing labor affected breastfeeding or other mom-baby issues later. Some groups such as Lamaze International still advocate letting nature take its course rather than giving medicines to make the womb start contracting.

“Many women don’t want all of the medical care that goes with induction” such as an IV and fetal monitoring, said Lisa Kane Low, past president of the American College of Nurse-Midwives and associate dean of the University of Michigan School of Nursing. “It can result in a very different type of experience.”

Being induced doesn’t mean moms can’t have “natural childbirth” — they can forgo pain medicine or use a hospital’s homelike birthing center rather than delivering in “an operating room in a sterile suite with a big light over your head,” said the study leader, Dr. William Grobman, an OB-GYN specialist at Northwestern University in Chicago.