Over the years, times change, health improves and everything seems to be better, to the point that none of our mothers and grandmothers would change the advances they have now for what was in their youth. Nor would we wish that the precariousness of those times would return (although our political leaders seem not to care too much), although it must be said that they surpassed us in some way: our mothers and grandmothers gave birth faster than women now, but much more.
Researchers from the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development have conducted a study in which they have observed that the duration of labor has been extended 2 hours and 40 minutes on average in a period of 50 years.
To carry out the study, they evaluated more than 140,000 new mothers who had given birth between 1959 and 1966 and between 2003 and 2009 and compared the time and characteristics of each birth.
When comparing the two groups of mothers, they realized that the women of the first group, our mothers and grandmothers gave birth in about four hours on average, while the women who gave birth already in the 21st century did in about six and a half hours.
The difference between the time it took for some and the time it takes for others is given, according to the authors, by the excessive medical intervention which has been carried out in the last decade, with a control of all the processes of childbirth too instrumentalized. Proof of this are the data that show that the use of epidural anesthesia was up to 55% in women who recently gave birth, compared to 12% of those who did decades ago, that the administration of oxytocin was carried out in 44%, compared to 12% of the "oldest" and that women now underwent a caesarean section 12% of the time, compared to 3% of women before.
Another reason is that the age at which women have their first child has also varied. 50 years ago women had their first child around 20 years and now women are about ten years older, when not any more.
A third possible reason is overweight and obesity, which also influences the duration of labor (and we already know that obesity rates have been increasing in recent decades).
Whatever the cause, and being perhaps what I am going to say a fourth reason, the way of living births has changed. My mother-in-law always says that giving birth is like going to crap, let go of the child and that's it. My mother, who has given birth six, some without anesthesia, others with and some by caesarean section, always says that if I had to have another one I would have it vaginal and without anesthesia. Now there are many women who want everything to be fast and painless, and that needs intervention, and ends up slowing the process. Others want to give birth naturally and end up changing their minds, perhaps because they are not prepared enough.
