BACKGROUND There is currently no validated method for antepartum prediction of the risk of failed vaginal birth after cesarean section and no information on the relationship between the risk of emergency cesarean delivery and the risk of uterine rupture. METHODS AND FINDINGS We linked a national maternity hospital discharge database and a national registry of perinatal deaths. We studied 23,2...

INTRODUCTION According to national organisations, obstetric services should be able to initiate a caesarean delivery within 30 minutes of the decision to operate. This is uniquely challenging in a small, rural hospital. In 2001, the authors' hospital was unable to meet this guideline reliably. This project demonstrates how we improved our emergency caesarean delivery response time. METHODS Th...

Malaria is associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality worldwide, particularly in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America. Nonetheless, several cases of malaria have been reported in Western countries involving travelers from endemic areas, though very few involve pregnant women. In this article, we report a case of a young woman born in Sierra Leone who had been living in Italy for ...

This paper examines the gender politics of Cesarean sections (C-sections) in Taiwan, the country with the third highest Cesarean rates (C-rates) in the world. Public discourses attribute the high C-rates to the demands of women. According to my fieldwork, the Taiwanese medical system itself is responsible for high C-rates. Taiwanese hospitals enforce a significant amount of medical intervention...

Introduction. D-dimer levels increase throughout pregnancy, hampering the usefulness of the conventional threshold for dismissing thromboembolism. This study investigates the biological fluctuation of D-dimer in normal pregnancy. Methods. A total of 801 healthy women with expected normal pregnancies were recruited. D-dimer was repeatedly measured during pregnancy, at active labor, and on the fi...

Horner's syndrome is a rare complication of epidural analgesia in labour. Although it is a sign of high sympathetic block, patients are usually haemodynamicaly stable. We report a case of undiagnosed Horner's syndrome complicating epidural analgesia in labour, where a standard dose of local anaesthetic was given for an emergency caesarean section without problems. This may confirm the benign na...

Cesarean delivery rates in California and the United States rose by 50% between 1998 and 2008 and vary widely among states, regions, hospitals, and health care providers. The leading driver of both the rise and the variation is first-birth cesarean deliveries performed during labor. With the large increase in primary cesarean deliveries, repeat cesarean delivery now has emerged as the largest s...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether the variation in unadjusted rates of caesarean section derived from routine data in NHS trusts in England can be explained by maternal characteristics and clinical risk factors. DESIGN A cross sectional analysis using routinely collected hospital episode statistics was performed. A multiple logistic regression model was used to estimate the likelihood of women h...

OBJECTIVE To analyze the trend of the monthly "caesarean section rate" (CSR) at the DISA V Lima-Ciudad Hospitals during the period 2001 - 2008. MATERIAL AND METHODS Ecological study that aim to analyze the monthly reports of all DISA V Lima-Ciudad Hospitals that attends childbirths, and by analyzing the trend of theirs monthly caesarean section ratio or monthly CSR (TCM = total caesarean birt...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effect of in situ simulation (ISS) versus off-site simulation (OSS) on knowledge, patient safety attitude, stress, motivation, perceptions of simulation, team performance and organisational impact. DESIGN Investigator-initiated single-centre randomised superiority educational trial. SETTING Obstetrics and anaesthesiology departments, Rigshospitalet, University o...