Comparing expectant management and spontaneous labor approaches in studying the effect of labor induction on cesarean...

Evidence of the impact of labor induction on cesarean delivery (CD) remains inconclusive because of differing methodological approaches. A spontaneous labor comparison group describes patterns retrospectively, whereas an expectant management comparison group prospectively evaluates a decision to induce. We examined the influence of comparison group on the association between labor induction and CD.

We studied 166,559 mother-newborn dyads from 14 National Perinatal Information Center member hospitals, 2007-2012. We included singleton births 34-42 completed weeks' gestation and excluded women with contraindications to vaginal delivery. We calculated risk ratios (RR) adjusted for hypertensive and diabetic disorders, intrauterine growth restriction, parity, and maternal age.

When comparing induction to spontaneous labor, induction had significantly lower risk for CD at weeks 34-35 (adjusted RR [95% confidence interval (CI)]: 0.6 [0.5, 0.7] for week 34 and 0.7 [0.6, 0.8] for week 35) and higher risk at weeks 37-41 (adjusted RRs [95% CIs]: 1.8 [1.6, 2.1], 2.1 [1.9, 2.2], 1.8 [1.7, 1.9], 1.9 [1.8, 2.0], and 1.6 [1.5, 1.7], respectively). When comparing induction to expectant management, adjusted RRs [95% CIs] were significantly below 1.0 for week 34 (0.8 [0.7, 0.9]), week 36 (0.9 [0.8, 0.9]), and week 37 (0.9 [0.8, 0.9]), and were only elevated at week 40 (1.4 [1.3, 1.4]) and week 41 (1.4 [1.3, 1.5]).

Using two different methodological approaches with the same sample, we confirm that comparing labor induction to spontaneous onset of labor, instead of expectant management of pregnancy, does not fully inform clinical practice and may lead to an exaggerated estimate of the risk of CD.