This is totally different to an ''active labour''. It is an expression used to cover the medical and one-to-one carer supervison throughout labour, intervention and control of labour through drugs or artificially breaking of the waters in early labour. It came about through a group of influential obstetricians in Dublin in the 1960s who perceived this was the way all deliveries should be handled, in order to have the highest chance of a normal delivery and lowest need for forceps.