Sara Wickham

“Rydahl et al (2019) also set out to look more thoughtfully at which studies should be included in a meta-analysis. They focused on recent studies (within the past 20 years) which compared healthy (or low risk) women having induction at 41 and 42 weeks. Again, they found no difference in perinatal mortality, morbidity and caesarean section rates. “Induction prior to post-term was associated with few beneficial outcomes and several adverse outcomes. This draws attention to possible iatrogenic effects affecting large numbers of low-risk women in contemporary maternity care. According to the World Health Organization, expected benefits from a medical intervention must outweigh potential harms. Hence, our results do not support the widespread use of routine induction prior to post-term (41+0–6 gestational weeks).” (Rydahl et al 2019: 170).”
― Sara Wickham, In Your Own Time: How western medicine controls the start of labour and why this needs to stop