Trial to analyse complications of delivering bigger babies

A clinical trial, led by a partnership between University of Warwick, University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) NHS Trust and the Perinatal Institute, is to determine if delivering bigger babies earlier will prevent serious complications during labour and beyond.

Studying 4,000 pregnant women in 60 maternity hospitals, the trial will examine if inducing an earlier birth is preferable to pregnancies going full-term and reduce complications.

Mothers on the trial will be allocated at random into either an early induction of labour group, with the aim to be delivered at around 38 weeks, or a control group where care is as normal and onset labour is awaited to start naturally. The team will analyse whether there are fewer complications as a result of earlier birth such as difficulty with the delivery of the shoulders.

Siobhan Quenby of Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick and UHCW NHS Trust, said: “As well as being extremely traumatic and painful for the mother, larger babies can be born with conditions such as Erb’s palsy, which is caused by damage to nerves in the neck during birth. This condition can debilitate the use of a baby’s arm, which in some cases can’t be rectified.”

The trial is to run over three and half years including a two year recruitment period of 4,000 large for gestational age pregnancies.