Prediction of time to delivery from start of contractions in induced labor: a life table analysis approach

Abstract

Labor was induced in a total of 200 patients. Outcome of treatment was compared with respect to time to delivery from start of contractions. Prognostic variables compared here were, e.g. dilatation, parity and Bishop score. All comparisons were performed with a life table technique, both bivariate and multivariate. Parity showed a strong relation to prognosis and so did cervical dilatation. The degree of cervical dilatation as in spontaneous labor is the factor in the Bishop index that correlated best to the outcome of treatment. With the two predictors parity and dilatation, a scoring system was constructed.