Royal birthing updates - Kate in labor

Date: Jul-22-2013Officials at Kensington Palace have confirmed that Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, is in the early stages of labor.

Medical News Today will be updating this story as news of the royal birthing develops today, bringing you added information on pregnancy, labor and birth.

The world's media is camped outside St Mary's hospital in London to await the birth of a royal baby since Kate arrived by car at around 6 am UK time with her husband Will, the Duke of Cambridge. Their first child, whether a boy or a girl, will be third in line for the throne of the British monarchy.

News from Twitter

0115 PST:
@BBCPeterHunt:
According to Kate's spokesman, "things are progressing as normal". #RoyalBaby

Is "one week late" normal?

The royal family itself gave no official confirmation of Kate's due date, but media speculation says today's labor is one week overdue. Doctors do not, however, consider one week past a due date to be a problem in healthy pregnant women.

The normal length of a pregnancy (or gestation - calculated from the last menstrual period to birth) is between 38 and 42 weeks, a four-week window in which the timing of a birth could be healthy.

Obstetricians describe infants born before 37 weeks as premature, while it is not until after 42 weeks that babies are considered "postmature."

Is Kate being induced?

Again, Kensington Palace has not given any response to widespread media speculation on whether or not Kate's labor has been induced.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says induction of childbirth in the US has more than doubled since 1990. In 2006, more than 1 in 5 of all pregnant women had their labor induced. There are similar concerns in the UK over increasing rates of induction and Cesarian section operations.

Following the rise in US inductions, ACOG recently revised its guidelines for maternity ward doctors on when and how to induce childbirths.

Induction is appropriate in some health conditions in the pregnant woman or the unborn baby, ACOG says, as long as the "gestational age of the fetus" has been "determined to be at least 39 weeks" or "fetal lung maturity" has been established.

ACOG outlines a number of options available to obstetricians when such induction is appropriate:

"Cervical ripening is the first component to labor induction. If the cervix is not sufficiently dilated, then drugs or mechanical cervical dilators should be used to ripen the cervix before labor is induced."

"Once the cervix is dilated, labor can be induced with oxytocin, membrane stripping, rupture of the amniotic membrane, or nipple stimulation."

"Misoprostol is a commonly used off-label drug that both ripens the cervix and induces labor."

"The ACOG guidelines indicate that inducing labor with misoprostol should be avoided in women who have had even one prior Cesarean delivery due to the possibility of uterine rupture (which can be catastrophic)."

Written by Markus MacGill

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