The duration of labor in adolescents

To determine the lengths of the first and second stages of labor in a group of Canadian adolescents; to compare this timeline to the estimates from a general population, and to a heterogeneous group of adolescents from a previous study.

Retrospective chart review.

Kingston General Hospital, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.

This study included women 19 years old and under at the time of delivery, having had spontaneous labor and a term singleton cephalic vaginal delivery between 2000 and 2005.

The primary outcome is the length of the first and second stages of labor. Impact of epidural use will be determined.

In adolescents undergoing spontaneous labor at term (n = 177), the median duration of the first stage was 6.8 and 3.2 hours for nulliparous and multiparous teens respectively, compared to 10.0 and 5.9 hours in a mostly adult population. The duration of the second stage, in term spontaneous vaginal deliveries, was 54 minutes for nulliparous and 10 minutes for multiparous adolescents, similar to the teens in Greenberg's 2007 study. Comparatively, median lengths of second stage for the general population were 92 minutes and 20 minutes for nulliparous and multiparous women respectively. Epidural analgesia had a significant influence on lengthening the second stage in adolescents, however second stages in teens were still shorter, when controlling for regional analgesia, than in a general population.

Adolescents do have shorter both first and second stages when compared to a general group. These differences demonstrate the importance of determining a distinct timeline for evaluating the course of labor in teens.