The partogram - evidence-based medicine is personal opinion based on fact.

The article by Bonet (BJOG 2019;126:1524-33) is not the first paper to challenge the benefit of the partogram and the 1 cm/hour rate of progress. The graphical representation of labour using the partogram and normal progress of labour at >=1 cm/hour are an integral part of the philosophy of Active Management of Labour (AML), which has been practiced at the National Maternity Hospital, Dublin for the last 55 years. This philosophy, which at best is often misunderstood and ignored and at worst misrepresented and misused, has been shown to be associated with low caesarean section rates in nulliparous spontaneous labour and also reduce caesarean section rates when studied in randomised trials (Brown et al. I Cochrane Database Syst Rev i 2013;4:CD004907). [Extracted from the article]