Lamaze Healthy Birth Practice: Avoid Interventions that Are Not Medically Necessary

Adapted from Giving Birth with Confidence, 3rd Edition. 

Although research shows that routine and unnecessary interference in the natural process of labor and birth is not likely to be beneficial -- and may indeed be harmful -- most U.S. births today are intervention intensive. A majority of people surveyed for Listening to Mothers III experienced the following interventions during labor:

• Continuous EFM (93 percent)
• Restrictions on eating (80 percent)
• IV fluids (62 percent)
• Restrictions on drinking (60 percent)
• Epidural anesthesia (67 percent)
• Artificially ruptured membranes (31 percent)
• Artificial oxytocin augmentation (36 percent)
• Episiotomy (17 percent)

Learn more about each of the interventions listed above by clicking on the link. 

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Learn more information about the benefits of avoiding unnecessary medical interventions in birth, including specific benefits and risks of each intervention:

• Read the summary of and complete Lamaze Healthy Birth Practice Paper on interventions, available in eight languages, to learn more about healthy labor and birth.
• Learn more about common medical interventions. 
• Watch a video that demonstrates avoiding unnecessary medical interventions.

Published: April 20, 2023

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