Maternal and fetal outcome of Lamaze-prepared patients.

To determine whether Lamaze childbirth preparation is harmless, harmful, or beneficial, 500 consecutive Lamaze-prepared patients were compared to 500 hand-picked controls, matched for age, race, parity, and educational level. Lamaze preparation was found to have a significant beneficial effect in almost every obstetric preformance category. The Lamaze-oriented patients had one-fourth the number of cesarean sections and one-fifth the amount of fetal distress (P less than .005). Postpartum infection, measured both by maternal febrile morbidity and by the incidence of antibiotic use, was one-third that of the controls (P less than .005). Similarly, the "prepared" patients had fewer perineal lacerations and those that occurred were not as serious as those in the control patients (P less than .005). The control patients had three times as many cases of toxemia of pregnancy (P less than .005) and twice as many of prematurity (P less than .05).