Since the first edition went to press in 1989, there have been many important developments concerning different aspects of maternity care. To take account of these, much needs to be added to this history. Late 1989 saw the publication of the double volume set of studies, Effective Care in Pregnancy and Childbirth, in which all the then existing evidence on all the associated procedures was considered and evaluated by well-informed and impartial authors representing many countries. This informative collection has since been followed by a flow of single reports of new research findings about...

All industrialized countries, in the last 50 years, have seen both an improvement in the safety of childbirth and the completion of a revolution in maternity care. This book aims to show that rather than being an advance in human welfare through the application of scientific knowledge to improve the natural process of birth, evidence shows that obstetric intervention only rarely improves the natural process. The evidence is found in the statistical analyses of the actual results of care, which consistently show that birth is safer the less its process is interfered with. The findings of...