Does Breaking Water Speed Labor?

Posted by Brenda Lane Oct 26, 2007

The Cochrane Review has published new research to see the effect of an amniotomy (or artificially breaking the mother's bag of waters during labor) on both labors that have started spontaneously as well as labors where the progress has slowed or stalled.

Fourteen randomized, controlled trials where included in this systematic review. The sample size for all of these trials was nearly 4900 women in labor. Two separate reviewers examined the same research to further validate the results.

What these reviewers discovered was that there was no evidence that the length of the first stage of labor was altered in any way by breaking the mother's water. There were also no differences found in the mother's satisfaction with her birth experience or the baby's Apgar scores at 5 minutes.

There was a slight increase in the risk of cesarean birth in the mother's who had their waters broken artifically, although reviewers noted that the difference was not statistically significant.

Researchers conclude that "on the basis of the findings of this review, we cannot recommend that amniotomy should be introduced routinely as part of standard labour management and care. We do recommend that the evidence presented in this review should be made available to women offered an amniotomy and may be useful as a foundation for discussion and any resulting decisions made between women and their caregivers."

For more new research about infection after your water breaks, read this blog.

Brenda