Antibiotics after childbirth could avert dangerous infections
Thousands of women could be spared pain and long-term health problems, trial suggests
Thousands of women every year could be spared painful and occasionally life-threatening infections if doctors administered preventive antibiotics after every assisted childbirth, a major trial has found.
A single dose of antibiotics within six hours of childbirth nearly halved the number of infections in women whose babies were delivered with either forceps or ventouse suction cups, procedures that are used in one in eight UK births.