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Care in Normal Birth: a practical guide
Maternal and Newborn Health/Safe Motherhood Unit, Family and Reproductive Health, World Health Organisation, Geneva 1996.
WHO/FRH/MSM/96.24
This publication discusses, the inappropriateness of the tenet that "no birth is normal except in retrospect", a definition of normal birth, care in normal birth, assessment of mother and baby's well-being, nutritional needs in labour, place of birth, support in childbirth, pharmacological and non pharmacological pain relief, hygiene, active versus expectant management of labour and birth and finally lists practices which have been found by research to be useful, harmful or ineffective, unclear, or used inappropriately. The aim was "to establish some norms of good practice for the conduct of non-complicated labour and delivery"
The report is wide-ranging in that it attempts to be...