WHO recommendations: intrapartum care for a positive childbirth experience  – Executive summary

Overview

In spite of the considerable debates and research that have been ongoing for several years, the concept of “normality” in labour and childbirth is not universal or standardized. There has been a substantial increase over the last two decades in the application of a range of labour practices to initiate, accelerate, terminate, regulate or monitor the physiological process of labour, with the aim of improving outcomes for women and babies. This increasing medicalization of childbirth processes tends to undermine the woman’s own capability to give birth and negatively impacts her childbirth experience.