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Pushing techniques in the second stage of labour
Author(s) -
Thomson Ann M
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
journal of advanced nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.948
H-Index - 155
eISSN - 1365-2648
pISSN - 0309-2402
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2648.1993.18020171.x
Subject(s) - stage (stratigraphy) , randomized controlled trial , medicine , obstetrics , adverse effect , third stage , surgery , biology , paleontology , training (meteorology) , physics , meteorology
It is routine to require women to ‘take a deep breath in, hold it and push’ in the second stage of labour, but there is no scientific evidence to support this practice. In a randomized controlled trial of spontaneous ( n = 15) versus directed ( n = 17) pushing in the second stage, no adverse effects of spontaneous pushing on the woman or baby were found. There was a negative correlation between the length of the second stage and the venous cord blood pH at delivery in the directed pushing group, suggesting that a long second stage was disadvantageous to the fetus when the woman was using a directed pushing technique. No such association was found in the spontaneous pushing group, despite the fact that the women in this group had a significantly longer mean second stage.