Conclusion
We conclude that 6cm rather than 4cm of cervical dilatation is more appropriate landmark for the start of the active phase. Allowing labor to continue for a longer period before 6 cm of cervical dilation may reduce the rate of unnecessary intrapartum interventions and caesarean section for labor dystocia. A woman to be considered in latent phase if cervical dilatation is less than 6 cm and other maternal and fetal conditions are reassuring, she should be allowed to continue the labor process without any intervention.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I thank all the women who consented to participate in the study as well as the staff at the centre for their assistance with study enrolment. I am grateful to Professor Sunita Malik for their efforts in creation of the project and increasing the feasibility of the research. I am thankful to my mother Rekha Purwar, my husband Dr Alok Jaiswal for their supports.
DISCLOSURE OF INTEREST : The authors have no conflicts of interest in connection with this article.
CONTRIBUTION TO AUTHORSHIP: RP and SM conceived and designed the study. RP acquired the data. ZK carried out the statistical analysis. SM, AM, PP, PM and SS supervised the study. RP wrote the paper. RP and SM analysed and interpreted the data, critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.
DETAILS ETHICS APPROVAL: This project was approved by institute Ethics Committee of VMMC and SJH, New Delhi (date of approval: 25 November 2014; reference number: IEC/VMMC/SJH/Thesis/November-2014/376). All participants provided written informed consent.
FUNDING: The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article