Night and weekend births have higher risk of delivery complications, study reveals

▤ Summary

The research team focused only on women with a single birth (i.e., not twins) who had gestation of more than 20 weeks, a delivery attended by a physician, and a normal labor onset. The study evaluated whether delivery complications (1) vary by work shift (day vs night), (2) increase as the hours pass within work shifts, and (3) increase on weekends (Friday evening to Monday morning) and holidays (Christmas, New Years Eve and the Fourth of July). The study also explored whether delivery complication rates are higher in teaching hospitals, and whether they increase when a new cohort of residents enter teaching hospitals in July, causing abrupt declines in physician experience and coordination between members of the healthcare team. Obstetric care in hospital settings is a team effort and ineffective teamwork has been implicated in an estimated 75 percent of preventable medical errors. The researchers hypothesize that hospitals could decrease the risk of harm to mothers by putting more emphasis on scheduling inexperienced physicians with more senior health professionals, among other things.

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