Routine Labor Care

People tend to be familiar with routine care for dental health and gynecological health, as well as the standard "physical." Those exams are things that we will do many times during our lives, so we come to know what to expect from them.

Maternity care is different because most of us will have just a couple of children. Some of the components of routine care during labor include cervical exams, electronic monitoring, IVs, catheters and Pitocin. Parents' choice of birth setting and care provider greatly affects how and when these procedures are used.

The first cervical exam takes place in triage. This exam provides a baseline or starting point for measuring the progress of labor. Cervical exams measure several ways that labor can progress:

• Dilation or openness of the cervix
• Effacement, or thinning and shortening, of the cervix
• Station of the baby, or how low the baby is positioned in the pelvis

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