The investigators have dressed up elective induction by calling it “Active Management of Risk in Pregnancy at Term (AMOR-IPAT)” and claim that by inducing labor for such reasons as "impending macrosomia," cesarean rates can be reduced and neonatal outcomes improved. Isn't it special that they managed to work the Spanish word for "love" and "I pat" into their acronym? I pat whom? Women on the head? Themselves on their backs? And "active" is such an attractive word to obstetricians. We have "Active Management of Labor" and "Active Management of Third Stage." If the obs of yesteryear were promoting episiotomy today, they probably would have called it "Active Management of the Perineum." But we digress.
The key thing is that this study provides a dandy justification for elective induction while appealing to docs who want to reduce the c/sec rate, so it is likely to have "legs," as they say in show biz. For this reason, we have decided to add it to "Flawed Research." The URL is: http://www.lamaze.org/Research/WhenResearchisFlawed/PreventiveInduction/tabid/535/Default.aspx
-- Henci