This study aims to describe outcomes in maternity services to identify changes that may be occurring in maternity services over the past years, such as rates, complications and characteristics of induced pregnancies compared to similar, non-induced pregnancies, to contribute to evidence about the safety or lack of safety of inductions, inform women about likely outcomes of inductions, and identify trends in practice following changes in guidelines.
Electronic Health Records (EHRs) will be used from several maternity services in West Midlands that see around 20,000 pregnancies each year. These records are routinely collected by healthcare workers and contain valuable information on pregnancy care. Pregnancies will be looked at where induction of labour was recorded and compare their risk factors with pregnancies without induction, and also use data about age, ethnicity, smoking and weight.