Objective: To obtain data on the characteristics of labour from a regional sample of Chinese parturients and to assess the pattern of progress of labour among nulliparous women.
Design: A prospective observational study.
Setting: The study was conducted in the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University.
Population: The final sample involved 1200 Chinese parturients with singleton, vertex and term gestation; spontaneous onset of labour; vaginal delivery; and without adverse perinatal outcomes.
Methods: A repeated-measures analysis was used to depict labour curves while an interval-censored regression was used to estimate the duration of labour centimetre by centimetre.
Main outcome measures: Labour curves and the duration of labour at the 50th and 95th percentiles.
Results: Among 1091 nulliparous women, 57.7% had cervical dilation of 3 cm or less at the time of admission, and the mean duration of the first stage of labour was 9.1 ± 3.3 hours. From 5 to 9 cm of cervical dilation it sometimes took more than 2 hours for dilation to advance 1 cm. No obvious inflection points appeared in the labour curve of Chinese nulliparae, and no deceleration was observed.
Conclusion: Progress of labour in Chinese parturients was more gradual than in their Western counterparts. Obstetric practice standards based on data generated from Western countries may not be appropriate for Chinese women.
Tweetable abstract: A prospective study has evaluated labour patterns in Chinese women using regional data from nulliparae.
Keywords: Chinese parturient; duration of labour; intrapartum care; labour curve; nulliparous women; vaginal delivery.
© 2016 Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.