The relation of time of day to childbirth

Abstract

Study 1 examined the case notes of 105 primiparous and 42 multiparous women in order to assess the relation of time of day to onset of labour, length of labour and epidural and augmentation administration. Results showed that primiparous mothers who consciously experienced their first contractions at night had shorter labours than those who began labour during daytime. In addition, the study revealed that the majority of epidural and augmentation administration occurred during daytime working hours. Study 2 aimed to replicate and expand on these results, and investigated whether shorter nocturnal labours were due to mothers sleeping through the mild contractions at the onset of labour, and whether the increase in epidural and augmentation administration was due to an increase in staffavailability during daytime working hours. The results showed that there was a longer latency between admission to labour ward and augmentation and/or epidural administration during night shift in comparison to day shifts, implying that midwives may employ stricter criteria at night before deciding that a labour should be augmented/anaesthetized. Measures failed to clarify why nocturnal labours were shorter than daytime labours, due to several confounding variables.