Labor, delivery, postpartum

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Labor, delivery

Americas

• Pan American Health Organization
  • Tool for Promoting Culturally Safe Childbirth: Basic Manual [2023]

Asia

• Frontiers in Public Health
  • Factors influencing childbirth fear among Asian women: a scoping review [2025]

Australia

• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
  • Non-instrumental vaginal birth
  • Labour and birth indicators

• Better Safer Care
  • Care during labour and birth

• BMJ Open
  • Maternal and perinatal outcomes by planned place of birth in Australia 2000 – 2012: a linked population data study [2019]

• Queensland Health
  • Normal birth

• SA Health
  • Tocolysis for Uterine Hypercontractility
  • Labour: Delays in the Second Stage
  • Labour and Birth in Water Clinical Directive
  • Labour and Birth Care
  • Fetal Growth (accelerated)

Australia, New Zealand

• Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
  • Care in labour in the absence of pregnancy complications [2023]
  • Water immersion during labour and birth [2021]
  • Diagnosis and management of suspected fetal macrosomia [2021]

Austria, Germany, Switzerland

• Geburtshilfe und Frauenheilkunde
  • Vaginal Birth at Term - Part 2. Guideline of the DGGG, OEGGG and SGGG (S3-Level, AWMF Registry No. 015/083, December 2020) [2022]
  • Vaginal Birth at Term - Part 1. Guideline of the DGGG, OEGGG and SGGG (S3-Level, AWMF Registry No. 015/083, December 2020) [2022]

Bangladesh

• International Journal of Clinical Practice
  • Rural-Urban Determinants of Receiving Skilled Birth Attendants among Women in Bangladesh: Evidence from National Survey 2017-18 [2022]

• PLoS ONE
  • Individual and community-level factors associated with skilled birth attendants during delivery in Bangladesh: A multilevel analysis of demographic and health surveys [2022]
  • Exploring spatial variations in level and predictors of unskilled birth attendant delivery in Bangladesh using spatial analysis techniques: Findings from nationally representative survey data [2022]

Belgium

• BMJ Open
  • Nationwide population-based cohort study of uterine rupture in Belgium: results from the Belgian Obstetric Surveillance System [2016]

Benin

• BMC Public Health
  • Trends in the utilisation of skilled birth attendance among pregnant women in Benin, from 2001 to 2017-2018, and projections to 2030 [2023]

Brazil

• BMC Public Health
  • Public engagement in health technology assessment in Brazil: the case of the public consultation on National Clinical Guidelines for Care in Normal Birth [2021]

• Ciência & Saúde Coletiva
  • Model of care in freestanding birth centers in Brazil: a scoping review [2025]

• Reproductive Health
  • Good practices according to WHO’s recommendation for normal labor and birth and women’s assessment of the care received: the “birth in Brazil” national research study, 2011/2012 [2016]

Canada

• Perinatal Services BC
  • Water Birth
  • Planned Place of Birth
  • Oral Intake in Labour
  • Mode of Birth
  • Birth Options and Practices That Promote Healthy Birthing

• Public Health Agency of Canada
  • Care during labour and birth

• Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada
  • Labour, Delivery, and Postpartum Care for People with Physical Disabilities [2021]
  • Attendance at and Resources for Delivery of Optimal Maternity Care [2019]
  • Management of Spontaneous Labour at Term in Healthy Women [2016]

Chad

• BMC Public Health
  • Spatial and multilevel analysis of unskilled birth attendance in Chad [2022]

China

• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • The incidence, risk factors and maternal and foetal outcomes of uterine rupture during different birth policy periods: an observational study in China [2021]

• Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
  • Analyzing the Study of Using Acupuncture in Delivery in the Past Ten Years in China [2014]

• Medicine
  • Investigation on the status of oral intake management measures during labor in China [2020]

East Africa

• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • Preference of mode of delivery and associated factors among mothers in East Africa: systematic review and meta-analysis [2025]

Egypt

• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • Childbirth care in Egypt: a repeat cross-sectional analysis using Demographic and Health Surveys between 1995 and 2014 examining use of care, provider mix and immediate postpartum care content [2020]

Ethiopia

• BMC Health Services Research
  • Male partner involvement in delivery care service and associated factors in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis [2024]

• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • Implementing a modified World Health Organization safe childbirth checklist in health centers of Ethiopia: a pre and post intervention study [2021]

• BMC Women's Health
  • Skilled birth attendant utilization trends, determinant and inequality gaps in Ethiopia [2022]

• BMJ Open
  • Women’s satisfaction with existing labour and delivery services in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis [2020]

• International Journal of Public Health
  • Predictors of Birth Preparedness and Complication Readiness Practices Among Pregnant Women in Ethiopia, a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis [2024]

• PLoS ONE
  • The uptake of WHO-recommended birth preparedness and complication readiness messages during pregnancy and its determinants among Ethiopian women: A multilevel mixed-effect analyses of 2016 demographic health survey [2023]
  • Receiving quality antenatal care service increases the chance of maternal use of skilled birth attendants in Ethiopia: Using a longitudinal panel survey [2022]

• Reproductive Health
  • Birth preparedness and complication readiness among pregnant women in Ethiopia: a systematic review and Meta-analysis [2018]

• Scientific Reports
  • Prevalence and determinants of uterine rupture in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis [2020]

• Systematic Reviews
  • Partograph utilization as a decision-making tool and associated factors among obstetric care providers in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis [2020]

Finland

• Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica
  • Trends in the epidemiology of fear of childbirth and association with intended mode of delivery: A nationwide register-based cohort study in Finland [2023]
  • Unplanned out-of-hospital deliveries in Finland: A national register study on incidence, characteristics and maternal and infant outcomes [2020]

• Annals of Epidemiology
  • Birth rate among women with fear of childbirth: a nationwide register-based cohort study in Finland [2023]

• BMC Women's Health
  • Factors associated with fear of childbirth in a subsequent pregnancy: a nationwide case-control analysis in Finland [2023]

• Scandinavian Journal of Surgery
  • Incidence of vaginal birth-related rupture of the pubic symphysis: A nationwide register study in Finland from 1998 to 2018 [2022]

France

• Haute Autorité de Santé
  • Normal childbirth [2017]

• Health Expectations
  • Consensus on the Structure and Content of Birth Plans: A Modified Delphi Study [2024]

Ghana

• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • Factors influencing the free maternal health care policy under the national health insurance scheme's provision for skilled delivery services in Ghana: a narrative literature review [2023]

• International Health
  • Inequalities in the prevalence of skilled birth attendance in Ghana between 1993 and 2014 [2023]

High-income countries

• PLoS Medicine
  • Variations in use of childbirth interventions in 13 high-income countries: A multinational cross-sectional study [2020]

• Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare
  • Intrapartum care policies in high-income countries with a universal health system: A scoping review [2023]

Hungary

• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • Socio-demographic factors, informal payments and satisfaction with childbirth in the Hungarian context [2025]

India

• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • Does government health insurance protect households from out of pocket expenditure and distress financing for caesarean and non-caesarean institutional deliveries in India? Findings from the national family health survey (2019-21) [2023]
  • Effectiveness of the WHO SCC on improving adherence to essential practices during childbirth, in resource constrained settings [2016]

• Ministry of Health and Family Welfare India
  • Labor Room Guideline [2016]

Indonesia

• BMJ Global Health
  • The effect of health insurance and socioeconomic status on women's choice in birth attendant and place of delivery across regions in Indonesia: a multinomial logit analysis [2023]

• Reproductive Health
  • Outcomes by birth setting and caregiver for low risk women in Indonesia: a systematic literature review [2019]

International

• Best Practice & Research Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology
  • Optimal Intrapartum Care [2020]

• BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology
  • WHO next-generation partograph: revolutionary steps towards individualised labour care [2021]
  • Diagnostic accuracy of the partograph alert and action lines to predict adverse birth outcomes: a systematic review [2019]
  • WHO model of intrapartum care for a positive childbirth experience: Transforming care of women and babies for improved health and well-being [2018]
  • Cervical dilatation patterns of ‘low-risk’ women with spontaneous labour and normal perinatal outcomes: a systematic review [2017]

• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • The effect of mode of delivery on health-related quality-of-life in mothers: a systematic review and meta-analysis [2022]

• European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology
  • Duration of spontaneous labour in ‘low-risk’ women with ‘normal’ perinatal outcomes: A systematic review [2018]

• Global Health: Science and Practice
  • Mapping the Prevalence and Sociodemographic Characteristics of Women Who Deliver Alone: Evidence From Demographic and Health Surveys From 80 Countries [2016]

• International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics
  • FIGO position statement on the use of the WHO labor care guide versus the partograph [2025]
  • Prep-for-Labor: Overview of FIGO's labor and delivery triage bundles of care to optimize maternal and newborn outcomes [2023]
  • FIGO good clinical practice paper: management of the second stage of labor [2021]
  • A Model for Safe Childbirth [2021]
  • Staffing requirements for delivery care [2019]
  • FIGO Statement: Staffing requirements for delivery care, with special reference to low- and middle-income countries [2019]
  • Management of the second stage of labor [2012]

• International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
  • Relationship Between Prolonged Second Stage of Labor and Short-Term Neonatal Morbidity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis [2020]

• International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics
  • Formative research and development of innovative tools for “Better Outcomes in Labour Difficulty” (BOLD) [2017]

• International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology
  • ISUOG Practice Guidelines: intrapartum ultrasound [2018]

• Médecins Sans Frontières
  • Normal delivery and procedures related to vaginal delivery [2019]

• PLoS ONE
  • Pregnant women autonomy when choosing their method of childbirth: Scoping review [2024]
  • Impact of continuous labor companion- who is the best: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials [2024]
  • Effectiveness of utilizing the WHO safe childbirth checklist on improving essential childbirth practices and maternal and perinatal outcome: A systematic review and meta-analysis [2020]
  • What matters to women during childbirth: A systematic qualitative review [2018]

• Reproductive Health
  • Global research priorities related to the World Health Organization Labour Care Guide: results of a global consultation [2023]
  • The prevalence of uterine fundal pressure during the second stage of labour for women giving birth in health facilities: a systematic review and meta-analysis [2021]
  • The development of the WHO Labour Care Guide: an international survey of maternity care providers [2021]

• United Nations Children's Fund - UNICEF
  • Delivery care

Ireland

• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • Regional variation in obstetrical intervention for hospital birth in the Republic of Ireland, 2005--2009 [2012]

Japan

• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • A cross-sectional survey of policies guiding second stage labor in urban Japanese hospitals, clinics and midwifery birth centers [2016]

• BMJ Open
  • Updating quality indicators for low-risk labour care in Japan using current clinical practice guidelines: a modified Delphi method [2019]

Kenya

• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • Factors associated with quality of intrapartum care in Kenya: a complex samples analysis of the 2022 Kenya demographic and health survey [2025]

Liberia

• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • Readiness of health facilities to provide safe childbirth in Liberia: a cross-sectional analysis of population surveys, facility censuses and facility birth records [2022]

• Ministry of Health Liberia
  • Labor and Delivery Protocol [2015]

Low and middle income countries

• Best Practice & Research Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology
  • Improving management of first and second stages of labour in low- and middle-income countries [2024]

• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • Person-centred maternity care during childbirth: a systematic review in low and middle-income countries [2025]
  • Clean delivery kit use in low-and middle-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis [2024]

• BMC Public Health
  • Determinants of clean birthing practices in low- and middle-income countries: a scoping review [2020]

• BMJ Open
  • Use of mHealth tools to register birth outcomes in low-income and middle-income countries: a scoping review [2022]

• Global Health Action
  • Strategies to increase rural maternal utilization of skilled health personnel for childbirth delivery in low- and middle-income countries: a narrative review [2022]

• Lancet Global Health
  • Factors associated with skilled birth attendance in 37 low-income and middle-income countries: a secondary analysis of nationally representative, individual-level data [2024]

• Midwifery
  • Which low- and middle-income countries have midwife-led birthing centres and what are the main characteristics of these centres? A scoping review and scoping survey [2023]

• PLoS ONE
  • Scoping review to identify and map the health personnel considered skilled birth attendants in low-and-middle income countries from 2000–2015 [2019]

Netherlands

• European Journal of Public Health
  • Impact of the EURO-PERISTAT Reports on obstetric management: a difference-in-regression-discontinuity analysis [2023]

New Zealand

• Starship
  • Delivery - attendance by paediatric staff at birth

Nigeria

• Medicine
  • Barriers and incentives influencing the use of partograph in Nigeria: A comprehensive review [2024]

Nigeria, Uganda

• BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology
  • Cervical dilatation over time is a poor predictor of severe adverse birth outcomes: a diagnostic accuracy study [2018]

Papua New Guinea

• International Health
  • Factors associated with the utilisation of skilled delivery services in Papua New Guinea: evidence from the 2016-2018 Demographic and Health Survey [2022]

Sierra Leone

• BMC Health Services Research
  • Women empowerment indices and utilization of health facilities during childbirth: evidence from the 2019 Sierra Leone demographic health survey [2023]

Sri Lanka

• Sri Lanka College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists
  • Management of Normal Labour [2022]

Sub-Saharan Africa

• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • Quality intrapartum care expectations and experiences of women in sub-Saharan African Low and Low Middle-Income Countries: a qualitative meta-synthesis [2023]

• BMC Public Health
  • Determinants of birth preparedness and complication readiness practice among reproductive-age women in Africa a systematic review and meta-analysis [2024]

• Journal of Global Health
  • Time trends in facility-based and private-sector childbirth care: analysis of Demographic and Health Surveys from 25 sub-Saharan African countries from 2000 to 2016 [2019]

• PLoS Medicine
  • Progression of the first stage of spontaneous labour: A prospective cohort study in two sub-Saharan African countries [2018]

• PLoS ONE
  • Factors associated with unskilled birth attendance among women in sub-Saharan Africa: A multivariate-geospatial analysis of demographic and health surveys [2023]
  • A look back on how far to walk: Systematic review and meta-analysis of physical access to skilled care for childbirth in Sub-Saharan Africa [2017]

Sweden

• Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica
  • Key outcomes in childbirth: Development of a perinatal core outcome set for management of labor and delivery at or near term [2023]

Switzerland

• Frontiers in Public Health
  • Quality aspects relating to giving birth in Switzerland: An analysis of quality indicators in inpatient obstetrics from 2013 to 2017 [2022]

• International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
  • Recording of Chronic Diseases and Adverse Obstetric Outcomes during Hospitalizations for a Delivery in the National Swiss Hospital Medical Statistics Dataset between 2012 and 2018: An Observational Cross-Sectional Study [2022]

• PLoS ONE
  • A true choice of place of birth? Swiss women's access to birth hospitals and birth centers [2022]

Taiwan

• Taiwanese Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
  • A proposed mother-friendly childbirth model for Taiwanese women and obstetricians' attitudes toward it [2015]

United Kingdom

• BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth
  • Waterbirth: a national retrospective cohort study of factors associated with its use among women in England [2021]
  • What influences birth place preferences, choices and decision-making amongst healthy women with straightforward pregnancies in the UK? A qualitative evidence synthesis using a ‘best fit’ framework approach [2017]
  • Women’s birth place preferences in the United Kingdom: a systematic review and narrative synthesis of the quantitative literature [2016]

• National Institute for Health and Care Excellence
  • Intrapartum care (Guidance) [2025]
  • 2023 exceptional surveillance of intrapartum care for healthy women and babies (NICE guideline CG190) [2023]
  • Intrapartum care for healthy women and babies [2022]
  • Intrapartum care: existing medical conditions and obstetric complications [2020]
  • Intrapartum care for women with existing medical conditions or obstetric complications and their babies [2019]
  • Intrapartum care (Quality standard) [2017]
  • Intrapartum care

• NHS Digital
  • NHS Maternity Statistics

• NHS England
  • Tokophobia pathway [2024]
  • Unassisted birth guideline [2023]

• Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority
  • Guideline for the Prevention, Diagnosis and Management of Hyponatraemia in Labour and the Immediate Postpartum Period [2017]

• Right Decisions
  • Criteria for attendance at delivery by neonatal staff

• Royal College of Anaesthetists
  • Care of the critically ill woman in childbirth; enhanced maternal care 2018 [2018]

United States

• American Academy of Pediatrics
  • Immersion in Water During Labor and Delivery [2014]

• American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
  • First and Second Stage Labor Management: ACOG Clinical Practice Guideline No. 8 [2024]
  • Medically Indicated Late-Preterm and Early-Term Deliveries [2021]
  • Avoidance of Nonmedically Indicated Early-Term Deliveries and Associated Neonatal Morbidities [2019]
  • Approaches to Limit Intervention During Labor and Birth [2019]
  • Immersion in Water During Labor and Delivery [2016]
  • Obstetric Labor

• American Family Physician
  • Management of Spontaneous Vaginal Delivery [2015]

• Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses
  • Lower Extremity Nerve Injury in Childbirth: AWHONN Practice Brief Number 11 [2020]
  • Continuous Labor Support for Every Woman [2018]

• BMC Public Health
  • Characterizing the utilization of doula support services among birthing people of color in the United States: a scoping review [2024]

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • Births - Method of Delivery
  • Birth Data

• Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health
  • Management of Labor: Are the New Guidelines Justified? [2018]
  • A Model Practice Template for Hydrotherapy in Labor and Birth [2017]

• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
  • Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice [2020]

• National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
  • Maternal and Neonatal Outcomes With Early Compared With Delayed Pushing Among Nulliparous Women [2016]
  • Association of the Duration of Active Pushing With Obstetric Outcomes [2016]
  • Labor and Delivery

• Scientific Reports
  • US county-level prevalence and spatial distribution of optimal birth outcomes 2018-2019 [2022]

WHO

• World Health Organization
  • Toolkit for implementation of the WHO intrapartum care and immediate postnatal care recommendations in health-care facilities [2023]
  • Essential childbirth care course (ECBC): module 1: introduction: facilitator's guide [2023]
  • Key points for considering adoption of the WHO labour care guide: policy brief [2022]
  • WHO labour care guide: user’s manual [2020]
  • Companion of choice during labour and childbirth for improved quality of care [2020]
  • Interregional technical consultation: learning from implementation of the WHO safe childbirth checklist: Colombo, Sri-Lanka, 28-30 August 2017 [2019]
  • WHO recommendations: intrapartum care for a positive childbirth experience [2018]
  • Definition of skilled health personnel providing care during childbirth: the 2018 joint statement by WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF, ICM, ICN, FIGO and IPA [2018]
  • WHO safe childbirth checklist collaboration evaluation report [2017]
  • Births attended by skilled health personnel (%)

{Related topics}

• Topic
  • Vaginal birth after cesarean
  • Third stage of labor
  • Shoulder dystocia
  • Premature rupture of membranes
  • Premature labor, preterm delivery
  • Postpartum (puerperium)
  • Obstetrics, perinatology
  • Obstetric forceps, vacuum extraction
  • Obstetric analgesia and anesthesia
  • Neonatology
  • Maternal and neonatal infections
  • Labor, delivery
  • Induction of labor, augmentation of labor
  • Home birth
  • Fetal monitoring
  • Fetal distress
  • Episiotomy, perineal trauma
  • Dystocia
  • Cesarean section
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Breech presentation
  • Breastfeeding