We all know what it’s like to try and focus on our work when we’re tired – even the simplest task can become arduous, and you’ll find yourself fading fast.
This is of course the very same in the case of medical practitioners who are delivering babies – but it could have much more serious consequences for everyone involved.
A new study has officially found that the number of hours an obstetrician spends working before an unscheduled delivery can directly influence the risk level for a mother and her unborn child.
The research, carried out at the University of Texas, represents the first ever investigation into where a delivery falls during a doctor’s shift, and how that timing affects risks to both Mother and Baby.
As part of the study, lead researcher James Scott and his team looked at data from over 24,500 unscheduled deliveries in the UK over the period between January 2008 and October 2013.
For every birth, each obstetrician had worked a 12-hour shift, with the same shift scheduling every day.
The research team initially estimated that the total number of hours worked during a doctor’s shift could be a very important predictor of adverse outcomes – even more important than whether the baby was delivered at the weekend or in the middle of the night.
The results proved their hypothesis correct. Scott and his team discovered that, where a physician entered the ninth hour of their 12-hour shift, maternal blood loss and low blood-oxygen levels in the unborn baby increased.
Interestingly, there was no corresponding link to higher risk of negative outcomes when they considered day shifts versus night shifts, and weekday versus weekend shifts.
Commenting on the significance of the findings, Scott said: “There are all sorts of studies about the timing of deliveries, but what nobody had looked at before is whether there is some kind of proxy for how fatigued doctors are.”
“We find that there’s a peak eight to 10 hours after the beginning of a shift when, relative to baseline, the risk of maternal blood loss exceeding 1.5 litres increases by 30 percent; and arterial pH, a marker for infant distress, is at increased risk of falling below 7.1 [the normal level is 7.3 or 7.4].”
We wonder if the study, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, will have any impact on shift procedures in delivery wards going forward.
