One trial did compare active management with «standard care» and claimed a 26 percent drop
in the cesarean section rate with active management (Lopez - Zeno et al. 1992).
One is that the 21st century lifestyle, which includes a diet very different from our ancestors», lots of antibiotic use, and even a
rise in cesarean section deliveries, has profoundly changed the makeup of microbes in the gut of many people in developed countries.
Further, while active management produced a
drop in cesarean section rates among women in private care, the active management did not produce a drop in women with public care.
«Study of the newborn feeding behaviors and fentanyl concentration in colostrum after an analgesic dose of epidural and intravenous
fentanyl in cesarean section.»
Prior research claiming to indicate rising rates of «Patient Choice Cesareans» was based on hospital discharge data which shows only that there has been an
increase in cesarean sections performed prior to labor for no recorded medical reason.
While the most important current explicit justification for the use of active management is the
reduction in cesarean section rates, an analysis of the components of active management for their ability to lower cesarean section rates is quite revealing.
First, a little of Tracy's story... Tracy's first birth was the typical hospital induction that went awry and
ended in cesarean section.
One reason for the
rise in cesarean sections is that the number of VBACs (vaginal birth after cesarean) peaked in the 1980's and are rarely performed today.
However, re-analysis of their data showed that simply doing the research caused an even greater
drop in the cesarean section rate (30.3 percent) in the control group.
Mothers like nitrous oxide because, in contrast to the epidural, it does not lead to a possible «chain of interventions» that can end
in a cesarean section, which has become the birth method for almost one in every three American mothers delivering in hospitals.
While a rise
in cesarean section (C - section) delivery rates due to breech presentation has improved neonatal outcome, 40 % of term breech deliveries in the Netherlands are planned vaginal deliveries.