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 ...

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 ...

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 ...