Commentary on ‘Maternal and child health after assisted vaginal delivery: five-year follow up of a randomised controlled study comparing forceps and ventouse’

Trends in vacuum and forceps delivery in teaching hospitals and academic health systems in West Java, Indonesia: A retrospective study

Objectives

Recently, there has been a decline in the use of vacuums and forceps. This is due to complications that occur in the mother and baby as well as the operator's ability to operate the instruments. Concerning Professional Education Standards for Obstetrics and Gynecology Specialists, the minimum skill that must be achieved by vacuum extraction and forceps is a minimum of five cases. This is difficult to achieve with the number of obstetrics and gynecology residents in West Java.

Methods

A retrospective study was conducted using medical records based on the International Classification of Disease 10th Revision from 1 to 28 February 2023 at teaching hospitals and Academic Health System in West Java, namely Hasan Sadikin Hospital, Al-Ihsan Hospital Bandung, and Cikalong Wetan Hospital West Bandung, in the period 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2022. The main outcome was vacuum and forceps extraction with consecutive sampling. The relationship between maternal characteristics such as maternal age, parity, gestational age, and indication for delivery with vaginal operative delivery was descriptive statistics analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 26.

Results

Trends indicate that the percentage of vaginal operative deliveries tends to be low, below 5%. Vacuum deliveries decreased from 0.75% in 2018 to 0.68% in 2022, while forceps deliveries decreased from 2.77% to 0.98% over the same period.

Conclusion

This study concludes that there was an insufficiency of vacuum extraction and forceps delivery cases at the teaching hospital and Academic Health System in West Java to achieve a minimum case of vacuum and forceps. Further research studying how educational interventions improve operative delivery skills might be considered.

Complications with vacuum delivery from a forceps-delivery perspective: Progress toward safe vacuum delivery

AIM

To examine the rates of medical malpractice and cerebral palsy after vacuum delivery in comparison with forceps delivery and establish approaches for enabling safe vacuum delivery from the perspective of forceps delivery.

METHODS

This study reviewed the Japan Obstetric Compensation System report data, which contains data from studies involving 188 cases through May 2013, including cases of emergency delivery. These cases included 118 cases of cesarean section (62.8%) and 70 cases of vaginal delivery (37.2%). Of the 188 patients, 145 required emergency delivery (77.1%), of which cesarean sections were performed in 117 patients (80.7%), vacuum delivery in 24 patients (16.6%) and forceps delivery in 4 patients (2.8%).

RESULTS

In evaluating the contents of the report with a focus on vacuum delivery, it was found that vacuum delivery was attempted in 35 patients, and delivery was successful in 24 of these patients (68.6%); however, in 11 patients (31.4%), delivery was unsuccessful and cesarean section was required. Thus, vacuum delivery was unsuccessful in approximately one third of the cases.

CONCLUSION

For delivery to be completed as successfully and quickly as possible, it is essential for obstetricians to have a good understanding of the process of vacuum delivery, and to have expertise in the relevant techniques. However, it is also necessary to modify the indications under which vacuum delivery is considered safe to perform, from fetal station ±0, that is, engagement of the fetal head, to station +2, or descent of the fetal head.

Delivery mode and pelvic organ prolapse: a retrospective observational study

OBJECTIVE

To analyse the associations between delivery mode and symptoms and signs of pelvic organ prolapse (POP) in a cohort of symptomatic women.

DESIGN

Retrospective observational study.

POPULATION

A total of 1258 consecutive women attending a tertiary urogynaecological unit for the investigation of lower urinary tract or pelvic floor disorders between January 2012 and December 2014.

METHODS

Obstetric history and clinical examination data were obtained from the unit database. Prolapse quantification on imaging was performed using stored four-dimensional translabial ultrasound volume data sets. Women were grouped into four groups according to the most traumatic delivery reported. The presence of symptoms and signs of POP were compared between delivery groups while controlling for potential confounders.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Prolapse symptoms, visual analogue score for prolapse bother, International Continence Society Prolapse Quantification System findings and ultrasound findings of anterior, central and posterior compartment descent.

RESULTS

Nulliparae showed the lowest prevalence of most measures of POP, followed by women exclusively delivered by caesarean section. Highest prevalences were consistently found in women delivered at least once by forceps, although the differences between this group and women delivered by normal vaginal delivery and/or vacuum extraction were significant in three out of eight measures only. Compared with women in the caesarean section group, the adjusted odds ratios for reporting symptoms of prolapse were 2.4 (95% CI 1.30-4.59) and 3.2 (95% CI 1.65-6.12) in the normal vaginal delivery/vacuum extraction group and forceps group, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

There is a clear link between vaginal delivery and symptoms and signs of pelvic organ prolapse in urogynaecological patients.

TWEETABLE ABSTRACT

Compared with caesarean section a history of vaginal delivery more than doubles the risk for POP.