The 1930s childbirth technique that ‘cuts labour by 4Π hours’
A METHOD of bringing on labour developed in the 1930s has been found to cut delivery times by more than four hours.
The Foley catheter, invented eight decades ago by an American surgeon, can significantly reduce how long women spend in labour.
When used with a drug called misoprostol, it was found to deliver a baby four-and-a-half hours earlier on average than the drug administered alone.
The procedure is cheap and simple, using a balloon inserted into the womb which is then pumped with a saline solution to coax open the birth canal and imitate the start of labour.
But it is understood to have fallen out of fashion with medical experts, who often use a synthetic version of ‘cuddle chemical’ oxytocin to induce labour despite a previous study which found the Foley catheter works as well as modern treatments but with fewer side effects.
The latest study, the largestever clinical trial of induction techniques, from the University of Pennsylvania, found women given the Foley balloon with misoprostol gave birth 13.1 hours later, compared to 17.6 hours for the drug by itself. Lead author Dr Lisa Levine, of the university’s Perelman School of Medicine, said: ‘Our results clearly show that the misoprostol-Foley combination method could significantly reduce the total time mothers spend in the delivery room, potentially leading to a reduction in labour-associated healthcare costs and risks to mothers and their babies.’
But independent midwife Kay Hardie, based in Kent, said: ‘When I qualified as a midwife 20 years ago, I had heard about this and it sounded horrific, almost prehistoric, putting a catheter up into the cervix and blowing it up with air.
‘It became very unfashionable, but often these things come round again.’ The midwife warned that the Foley catheter may be uncomfortable, while raising concerns that women are being induced too often.
But every year one in five British women who give birth are induced, often if their baby is overdue – beyond 42 weeks, and if the child is failing to grow or they have high blood pressure.
There is little agreement on best practice for how to start a woman’s contractions, with the US researchers looking at nearly 500 women being induced at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
The study found using the Foley catheter and misoprostol sped up delivery far more than either method alone. The catheter without the drug took 17.7 hours on average, but both were 1.4 hours faster than the balloon used with a synthetic version of oxytocin.
They did not appear to have any significant effect on either mother or child suffering serious medical complications
Dr Levine, whose study was published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynaecology, said the method could ‘reduce the stress that mothers experience while awaiting delivery’.
Patrick O’Brien, spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said: ‘Women shouldn’t think they’re being offered an old-fashioned technique that’s inferior to more modern treatment.’
‘It sounded horrific’