Our inner clock influences not only the ideal time to fall asleep and wake up, to study and take exams. Chronobiology is becoming increasingly relevant in medical research as well. Whether for the effectiveness of medications, for example in cancer therapies or dementia care.
For our body does not always work the same; the cardiovascular system, the hormones in the blood, the activity of the organs, our pain sensitivity change over the course of the day—depending on the inner clock. Now its significance has been discovered for a completely new topic: births.
The Study
Over several years, data from 3,363 women giving birth were examined; these women delivered a child in the same hospital after an induction of labor. The researchers in the United States focused especially on the timing at which the women received the induction agent—a synthetic hormone called oxytocin. In this way they identified a strong correlation between the time of induction and the duration of labor.
The study, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology Maternal-Fetal Medicine, showed that women who received the agent between 3 and 6 a.m. spent significantly shorter times in labor.
Afterwards, the duration of labor rose steadily and reached its peak when the agent was given only in the late evening hours, just before midnight. Women who received it then stayed in labor up to 6 hours longer. This was especially true for people having their first birth. C-sections also occurred more frequently when induction took place after 9 a.m. However, the timing of induction did not affect the medical well-being of the newborns.
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What Does It Bring?
The result carries the opportunity to shorten the duration of labor with simple means. Anyone who has spent six hours in labor can attest that a shorter labor would have been more comfortable. Moreover, the study makes clear that births are a teamwork effort. Not only among all those involved in the delivery room but also between the physiological processes and the medical procedures.
Where hospitals typically try to correct something that has gone wrong in the body, the body itself often does quite a lot right during birth. Since modern medicine has taken up the topic of delivery and saves lives daily with drips and scalpels, doctors must also be careful not to overlook any part of the intricate biological work.
Whether this means giving the umbilical cord more time for nutrient provisioning before the cut or giving the baby time to suck before the check-up, we now know that the mother’s inner clock also needs time—and next we can find out exactly why.
