How labor ward culture can increase C-sections

Rates of cesarean deliveries in the U.S. have remained stubbornly high over the past decade, making up close to a third of all births, and cesarean rates vary widely from hospital to hospital. Recent studies suggest that staff views and practices may be playing a role.

Obstetrician Neel Shah of Ariadne Labs, a joint center of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said in a September 12, 2017 Wall Street Journal article that the biggest factor in whether a woman will have a cesarean delivery “is the door she walks through” to give birth.

Shah, director of the Delivery Decisions Initiative at Ariadne, and other researchers told the Journal that a number of factors could be influencing hospitals’ decisions about whether or not to perform cesarean deliveries, such as managers’ risk tolerance or even the design of the labor ward.

Read the Wall Street Journal article: To Reduce C-Sections, Change the Culture of the Labor Ward

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Hospital management practices may put women at risk for C-sections, complications during childbirth (Harvard Chan School release)