Evaluation of the effectiveness of the World Health Organization Labor and Delivery Management Program on neonatal clinical outcomes of vaginal delivery

BACKGROUND: In order to end preventable neonatal morbidity and mortality, every newborn should receive skilled care at birth, with evidence-based practices, in a humane, respectful, and supportive environment. To address safety concerns during planned deliveries in hospitals, the Safe Delivery Checklist was developed by the World Health Organization. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the effectiveness of the Labor and Delivery Management Program on neonatal clinical outcomes of vaginal delivery. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present study was a clinical trial study that was conducted on 470 mothers with vaginal delivery in hospitals in Ahvaz in 1402. Subjects were randomly assigned to two control and intervention groups. In the intervention group, care and delivery were performed based on the World Health Organization childbirth checklist. Finally, the data were analyzed using SPSS version 22 software (IBM, SPSS Inc, Chicago, Illinois, USA). RESULTS: The results of the Chi-square test of the two intervention and control groups in terms of the frequency of neonatal hospitalization in the neonatal intensive care unit ( P = 0.001), the frequency of shoulder dystocia ( P = 0.039), and the frequency of first-minute Apgar scores less than 7 in newborns ( P = 0.031) show that the frequency of these outcomes was higher in the control group than in the intervention group, and these differences were reported to be statistically significant ( P = 0.001), but the frequency of fifth-minute Apgar scores less than 7 in newborns had almost the same distribution in both groups and no statistically significant difference was reported ( P = 0.413). CONCLUSION: Based on the results of the study on the effectiveness of the World Health Organization childbirth program, it is recommended that this program be used in maternity hospitals and centers providing childbirth facilities to improve the health of newborns.