Subcutaneous emphysema and pneumomediastinum in the postpartum period.

The Hamman syndrome, pneumomediastinum and subcutaneous emphysema complicating labor and delivery, is infrequently encountered in clinical practice. The prevalence estimates have ranged from 1 in 2000 pregnancies to 1 in 100,000 pregnancies. One hundred ninety-two cases have been reported in the medical literature to date. l Reeder,2 in a review of 187 cases, found that most patients with this complication were primiparous women who developed the syndrome during the second stage of labor and that their first and second stages of labor were for the most part of normal duration. We report an additional case of the Hamman syndrome to focus more on management of this condition during the postpartum period and to alert family physicians of this possible, yet rare, complication of labor.