Comparison of the Labor Outcomes of the Hospitalized Nulliparous Women in Latent and Active Phase and some related factor in women who refered to Bandarabbas shariati hospital during 2008-9

There are different views on the time of admission in parturient woman. Most of the specialists and medical centers delay the admission of the low risk parturient women until the onset of the active phase of labor to preven any unnecessary intervention in the process of labor. This study was conducted to compare the outcomes of labor in the hospitalized nulliparous women in latent and active phase and some related factors. This is a cross-sectional study. The subjects were selected by convenience sampling method. 188 hospitalized women in the latent phase and 285 parturient women in the active phase who were nulliparos, had spontaneously started labor, were at 37-41 weeks of gestation, with cephalic presentation, singleton pregnancy, and intact membranes were enrolled. The related data were collected and analyzed in SPSS using Chi–square and T–test. 35.6% of hospitalized cases in the latent phase and 9.8% in the active phase had abnormal deliveries; a significant difference was shown by χ2 test (p=0.000). The mean age in the latent phase and active phase was 21.66±3.38 and 22.46±3.62 years, respectively, showing a significant difference (p=0.014). The mean of the time interval between the first exam to admission in the latent and active phase groups were 14.18±16.81 and 9.74±10.98 hours, respectively. The difference was significant by T-test. In the latent phase 18.1%(34) and the active phase groups 3.9% (11), there were meconium passing which resulted in abnormal delivery.(p=0.000) This study indicates that there is probably a difference in the nature of labor between hospitalized women in the latent and active phases that lead to increased abnormal delivery. Could the delivery phobia and anxiety mechanisms caused labor disorder associated with prolongation of the expectant birth time? This is the question which was not answered in this study. However, it is recommended that this question to answered by either our or another research team in further studies.