Most of the time labor and delivery goes smoothly, but sometimes interventions are necessary to ensure the safety of mother and baby. Some of these interventions include:

• Fetal monitoring
• Forceps or a vacuum extractor
• Episiotomy
• Cesarean Delivery (C-section)
• Epidural Anesthesia

Click on any of the above to see what each of them includes as well as the indications.

Interventions are usually done to improve outcome and safety, and very rarely interventions are done for traditional reasons and without much indications.

Discussing with your doctor what you would like to be done and getting an explanation what these interventions are will help you understand them better. The best time to do this is well before you get admitted to labor and delivery.