Can you spot the bias?

[sapphire_chan]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0512204849.htm

[captain optimism]

Argh, what an article! "We gave larger women the same dose of labor-inducing medication that we gave smaller women, and it didn't work! Therefore, larger women should lose weight!": Hello, if we were talking about taller women rather than fatter women, would anyone be saying "you should be shorter"?

And um, we are inducing labor why? Are these all inductions after water has broken and labor has not begun? Inductions because of an emergency, like pre-eclampsia? Oh no, they are elective inductions.

So you bring a woman in for an elective induction and you have nearly 200 women in the study, and each time you go "Hmm, takes more medication to unnecessarily induce this larger woman and she's more likely to have a c-section."

[Sabo]

Does this mean that dr.'s may be more supportive of an unmedicated birth if I packed on the pounds? I wonder if any baseline testing was done comparing obese and slim women who chose natural birth. Any good researcher would have a control condition.

And OMG, that is ground-breaking research! If you weigh more, it might take more medication for you to experience the same effect as someone who weighs less. Heck, I didn't know that. You mean if I drink the same number of beers as a woman twice my size, I'll probably feel more drunk?! No way! Sorry, I get frustrated when all kinds of important research can be done, and money is wasted stating the obvious. I know that I went off on a tangent and the point is about allowing women to labor naturally rather than inducing, but it all annoys me.

[sapphire_chan]

Ding!! We have a winner!

I think the second to last paragraph should read:

She says the take home message is that doctors need to tell women that electing to have labor induced can place them at higher risk of longer labor and could increase the possibility that they will need a cesarean section. In addition, doctors should wait for labor to begin spontaneously rather than choosing to induce labor early in women, given these risks.

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by Sabo

And OMG, that is ground-breaking research! If you weigh more, it might take more medication for you to experience the same effect as someone who weighs less. Heck, I didn't know that. You mean if I drink the same number of beers as a woman twice my size, I'll probably feel more drunk?! No way! Sorry, I get frustrated when all kinds of important research can be done, and money is wasted stating the obvious. I know that I went off on a tangent and the point is about allowing women to labor naturally rather than inducing, but it all annoys me.

No actually you had it right the first time the point is that the article and the study are annoying.