THE TEST OF LABOR—AN EVALUATION OF ITS PRESENT WORTH

Abstract

The test of labor is an active, dynamic process by which a parturient demonstrates whether or not she can be safely delivered of a normal infant through the pelvis. The test of labor is worrisome, time-consuming, cumbersome and perhaps unscientific and old-fashioned, but is not its employment still the only way a physician can know with any degree of certainty that cesarean section is the best treatment in most borderline conditions of dystocia? It has been more or less dogmatically suggested in some quarters that the test of labor is now outmoded and no longer necessary, or at least, that its use can be greatly limited. The precision of roentgen-ray pelvimetry and perhaps cephalometry is advanced as one reason for this attitude. A study of recent experiences with the test of labor, therefore, seemed indicated to answer the question of the current advisability of the test of labor. An adjunct