Public health officials across the U.S. say the number of cesarean sections being performed has gotten way out of hand. It's a life-saving surgery for complicated births, but today nearly a third of ...

Under normal conditions, a mother is pregnant for about 38 weeks before entering labor, the process of delivering her baby. As labor begins, the mother's body produces large quantities of the hormone ...

Labor takes longer in women pregnant with twins, a new study shows, suggesting that these mothers and their doctors could wait a few more hours before opting for cesarean delivery. Using a national ...

When a pregnant woman is in labor, the wait for "10" — the number of centimeters the cervix must be dilated before the baby can be born without intervention — can feel like forever. In reality, the ...

The Friedman curve, the gold standard for rates of cervical dilation and fetal descent during active labor, was developed almost 50 years ago. To define a modern curve for normal labor, these ...

Labor is the process by which the baby and placenta leave the uterus, or womb. This process normally begins on its own around the 40th week of pregnancy. In some cases, however, medical intervention ...

Women with low-risk pregnancies should be allowed to spend more time in labor, to reduce the risk of having an unnecessary C-section, the nation's obstetricians say. The new guidelines on reducing ...