Joining the Fight for Safer Childbirth

Can the rate of C-sections among first-time mothers be reined in?

HealthAlliance Hospital in Kingston, a member of the Westchester Medical Center Health Network, will help answer that question. In November, the hospital was accepted into the American College of Nurse Midwives’ “Reducing Primary Cesareans Project,” aimed at reducing C-sections among low-risk women who have never given birth before. Among other practices, the program advocates for improving care and comfort in labor, promoting natural labor, and using fetal-monitoring techniques proven to reduce C-sections or forceps and vacuum deliveries. The initiative is a powerful move to safeguard women’s and infants’ health, since vaginal deliveries are associated with fewer complications and fatalities in low-risk cases.

Pictured: Dominique Delma, MD, Chairperson of HealthAlliance Hospital’s OB-GYN program, with Marta Sanchez, MD, and her baby, Emma.