IT HAS long been the one task seized on by nervous husbands hanging round the delivery room: coaching their wives through labour. At a loss for the vocabulary or posture for the occasion, many men resort to pacing, perching and instructing, like a neurotic cox urging on his crew.

According to new research, however, regimented coaching of a woman through childbirth, whether by a hapless husband or trained assistant, is of almost no benefit and can even increase health complications.

Scientists at the University of Texas have found that telling a woman to push during contractions makes very little difference in shortening labour, and may encourage later problems with the bladder and pelvic floor.

The study, published in the January American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, suggests that “coaching” reduces labour by fewer than 15 minutes at most when compared with leaving women to give birth naturally.

The researchers also found that coached mothers were left with a smaller bladder capacity and a decreased “first urge to void” — the volume at which a woman wants to pass urine.

The research follows recent suggestions that the father’s presence in the delivery room may be a hindrance rather than a help, making both partners feel uncomfortable, and leads to increased Caesarean sections and affects post-baby sexual relations.

The researchers at Southwestern Medical Centre, at Texas University, focused on “second-stage labour”, when the cervix is fully dilated and the baby begins to descend.

The research involved 320 women who were giving birth for the first time, had uncomplicated pregnancies and did not receive epidural anaesthesia. The women, treated at Parkland Memorial Hospital, Dallas, were randomly divided into two groups, both tended by nurse-midwives.

In the groups, 163 women were coached to push for ten seconds during a contraction, and 157 told to “do what comes naturally”. For the women assigned to the coaching group, the second stage of labour was shortened by 13 minutes, from 59 to 46 minutes. Steve Bloom, the lead author of the paper and interim chair of obstetrics and gynaecology, said: “There were no other findings to show that coaching or not coaching was advantageous or harmful.”

An earlier study, also reported in Obstetrics and Gynecology, involved the same group of 320 women. It found that the coached women had smaller bladder capacity and needed to pass urine more quickly. However, the researchers added that over time the bladder function could return to normal.

Kenneth Leveno, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology and senior author of both studies, said that women should not be overly concerned. “Whether or not these functional changes have long-term consequences, I’m not ready to say,” he said. “We don’t want to alarm patients about this.”

According to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in Britain, emotional support is vital to the mother during childbirth, improving the chances of a problem-free natural birth and reducing the need for emergency Caesarean sections. However, the institute recommends having another woman present as preferable to the father.

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