Failure To Progress

What your doula wants you to know about the messy truth behind this phrase so many women hear when they’re told they’re “not progressing” during labor.

Failure to progress” is used when a laboring woman isn’t opening according to a set hospital rule: about one centimeter per hour. We can all agree this rule puts enormous pressure on women, and when the phrase is spoken out loud, it can make a mother feel as if her body has let her down.
But is it really the woman who’s failing?

Picture this: you’re in a hospital room doing everything you can to stay calm in a space that doesn’t feel like yours. You’re breathing through contractions while lights shine above you, machines beep around you, and strangers walk in and out with charts and questions. Hours pass. You’re working through intense waves, and then you’re told there’s “no progress.” Suddenly interventions are suggested.

But this phrase is long overdue for a reframing.

Your body is built to labor in a space where you feel safe and held. A place with privacy, warmth, soft voices, and people you trust. A place where your nervous system can settle. But hospital births often look very different. People come and go. Questions interrupt your rhythm. Bright lights stay on. You hear other women laboring. All of these things pull you out of the deep, instinctive part of yourself that actually drives labor forward.

When a woman doesn’t feel safe, supported, or respected, her body slows down.
Just like a cat who moves to a new room to have her kittens, you instinctively seek safety too—but you don’t always have the ability to change your environment.

What many women don’t realize is this: you’re not a guest in the hospital. You’re the one giving birth, and you’re allowed to shape your space.

You can say:

• “Please only come into my room when it’s needed.”
• “Please speak to me in calm, gentle tones.”
• “Please keep the lights low unless something important is happening.”

Simple requests like these help you build a nest, even in a hospital setting. If women were met with this level of respect and communication from the start, “Failure to Progress” would hardly ever be spoken.

Which is why I call it Failure to Wait.

A woman is not a machine. She opens and births her baby when she feels safe, heard, and understood.

As a doula and Birth Feminist, I always say: “Look at the women. Hold their hands. Stay with them. They will show you exactly what they need.”

If you want to learn more about how to protect your birth space and truly own your experience, I’d love to hear from you.
And if you are a birthworker, midwife, OB, gynecologist, or nurse who wants to support women emotionally during labor, please reach out as well. Change happens when we work together.

Small shifts can transform a moment a woman will remember for the rest of her life.

I am Milan-based and work with clients worldwide through video or phone. If you’d like to connect or learn more, you can reach me here.

Much Love,

Margaretha