Health Dictionary
Reliable, easy-to-read patient information on common medical conditions — written in plain language, free of jargon, and grounded in current evidence. Browse the most frequent diagnoses, understand what they mean for everyday life, and learn which steps and questions help you have a focused conversation with your doctor.
Labor and Delivery
Introduction
Overview
Overview
Labor and Delivery, a labor ward or a labour ward is a department of a hospital devoted to childbirth. In many hospitals, “Labor and Delivery” is one department and “Maternity”, where a woman recovers following birth, is another. In the United States, it is common practice to move a woman from Labor and Delivery to Maternity in the hour following birth.
Benefits and drawbacks
Benefits and drawbacks
Delivery in the birthing department of a hospital is common practice in Western culture. Benefits include facilities and equipment for an emergency caesarean section and access to a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
Risks include drug complications (the leading adverse effect of hospitalization[1]) and the possibility of a nosocomial infection (infection contracted in a hospital, the second most frequent adverse effect of hospitalization[2][1]), responsible for 88,000 deaths in the United States in 1995.[3][4]
History
History
The first maternity ward in the United States is established at Bellevue Hospital Center in 1799.
References
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The nature of adverse events in hospitalized patients. Results of the Harvard Medical Practice Study II
- ↑ Binary Cumulative Sums and Moving Averages in Nosocomial Infection Cluster Detection, Centers for Disease Control
- ↑ Causes of Death of the United States of America – Death by Medicine Part II
- ↑ The Impact of the Environment on Infections in Healthcare Facilities, The Center for Health Design
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]