Are intrapartum and neonatal deaths in breech delivery at term potentially avoidable?--a blinded controlled audit

Practical insight into upright breech birth from birth videos: A structured analysis

BACKGROUND

We aimed to identify common features of upright vaginal breech births with good outcomes to refine a physiological approach to teaching breech birth.

METHODS

We performed a structured analysis of 42 videos of successful upright breech births (eg, kneeling, hand/knees), facilitated by obstetricians (n = 34) and midwives (n = 8) in nine different countries. Precise timings and relevant clinical details were recorded on an Excel spreadsheet. Each video was analyzed twice by at least two members of the research team. Time-to-event intervals, frequencies of interventions, and descriptive statistics were calculated using SPSS.

RESULTS

A completely spontaneous (labor mechanisms and maternal effort only) birth occurred in 14/42 (33%) cases. The median time between the birth of the fetal pelvis and the head in all births was 1:52 (IQR 1:05,2:46; min:sec). Lack of spontaneous rotation to a sacro-anterior position by the time the fetus had emerged to the nipple line was strongly associated with fetal arm entrapment. The following maneuvers were used: shoulder press to flex the aftercoming head in midpelvis or outlet (n = 24), sweeping down arm/s (n = 12), buttock lift to assist shoulder press (n = 6), modified Mauriceau (n = 6), rotational maneuvers to release an entrapped arm (n = 6), elevate and rotate fetal head to assist engagement (n = 2), and conversion into supine maternal position (n = 2).

CONCLUSIONS

Most upright breech births occur within 3 minutes of the birth of the fetal pelvis. Upright breech birth attendants use variations of traditional maneuvers. We introduce a physiological breech algorithm as an initial timekeeping framework for teaching, research, and practice.

Adherence to guidelines and suboptimal practice in term breech delivery with perinatal death- a population-based case-control study in Norway

BACKGROUND

In a recent population-based study we reported excess risk of neonatal mortality associated with vaginal breech delivery. In this case-control study we examine whether deviations from Norwegian guidelines are more common in breech deliveries resulting in intrapartum or neonatal deaths than in breech deliveries where the offspring survives, and if these deaths are potentially avoidable.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Case-control study completed as a perinatal audit including term breech deliveries of singleton without congenital anomalies in Norway from 1999 to 2015. Deliveries where the child died intrapartum or in the neonatal period were case deliveries. For each case, two control deliveries who survived were identified. All the included deliveries were reviewed by four obstetricians independently assessing if the deaths in the case group might have been avoided and if the management of the deviations from Norwegian guidelines were more common in case than in control deliveries.

RESULTS

Thirty-one case and 62 control deliveries were identified by the Medical Birth Registry of Norway. After exclusion of non-eligible deliveries, 22 case and 31 control deliveries were studied. Three case and two control deliveries were unplanned home deliveries, while all in-hospital deliveries were in line with national guidelines. Antenatal care and/or management of in-hospital deliveries was assessed as suboptimal in seven (37%) case and two (7%) control deliveries (p = 0.020). Three case deliveries were completed as planned caesarean delivery and 12 (75%) of the remaining 16 deaths were considered potentially avoidable had planned caesarean delivery been done. In seven of these 16 deliveries, death was associated with cord prolapse or difficult delivery of the head.

CONCLUSION

All in-hospital breech deliveries were in line with Norwegian guidelines. Seven of twelve potentially avoidable deaths were associated with birth complications related to breech presentation. However, suboptimal care was more common in case than control deliveries. Further improvement of intrapartum care may be obtained through continuous rigorous training and feedback from repeated perinatal audits.

Potentially Avoidable Peripartum Hysterectomies in Denmark: A Population Based Clinical Audit

Objective

To audit the clinical management preceding peripartum hysterectomy and evaluate if peripartum hysterectomies are potentially avoidable and by which means.

Material and Methods

We developed a structured audit form based on explicit criteria for the minimal mandatory management of the specific types of pregnancy and delivery complications leading to peripartum hysterectomy. We evaluated medical records of the 50 Danish women with peripartum hysterectomy identified in the Nordic Obstetric Surveillance Study 2009–2012 and made short narratives of all cases.

Results

The most frequent indication for hysterectomy was hemorrhage. The two main initial causes were abnormally invasive placenta (26%) and lacerations (26%). Primary atony was third and occurred in 20%. Before hysterectomy another 26% had secondary atony following complications such as lacerations, retained placental tissue or coagulation defects. Of the 50 cases, 24% were assessed to be avoidable and 30% potentially avoidable. Hysterectomy following primary and secondary atony was assessed to be avoidable in 4/10 and 4/13 cases, respectively. Early sufficient suturing of lacerations and uterine ruptures, as well as a more widespread use of intrauterine balloons alone or in combination with uterine compression sutures (the sandwich model), could presumably have prevented about one fourth of the peripartum hysterectomies.

Conclusion

More than 50% of peripartum hysterectomies seem to be avoidable by simple measures. In order to minimize the number of unnecessary peripartum hysterectomies, obstetricians and anesthesiologists should investigate individual cases by structured clinical audit, and disseminate and discuss the results for educational purposes. An international collaboration is warranted to strengthen our recommendations and reveal if they are generally applicable.

Stillbirths: the way forward in high-income countries

Stillbirth rates in high-income countries declined dramatically from about 1940, but this decline has slowed or stalled over recent times. The present variation in stillbirth rates across and within high-income countries indicates that further reduction in stillbirth is possible. Large disparities (linked to disadvantage such as poverty) in stillbirth rates need to be addressed by providing more educational opportunities and improving living conditions for women. Placental pathologies and infection associated with preterm birth are linked to a substantial proportion of stillbirths. The proportion of unexplained stillbirths associated with under investigation continues to impede efforts in stillbirth prevention. Overweight, obesity, and smoking are important modifiable risk factors for stillbirth, and advanced maternal age is also an increasingly prevalent risk factor. Intensified efforts are needed to ameliorate the effects of these factors on stillbirth rates. Culturally appropriate preconception care and quality antenatal care that is accessible to all women has the potential to reduce stillbirth rates in high-income countries. Implementation of national perinatal mortality audit programmes aimed at improving the quality of care could substantially reduce stillbirths. Better data on numbers and causes of stillbirth are needed, and international consensus on definition and classification related to stillbirth is a priority. All parents should be offered a thorough investigation including a high-quality autopsy and placental histopathology. Parent organisations are powerful change agents and could have an important role in raising awareness to prevent stillbirth. Future research must focus on screening and interventions to reduce antepartum stillbirth as a result of placental dysfunction. Identification of ways to reduce maternal overweight and obesity is a high priority for high-income countries.

Delivering interventions to reduce the global burden of stillbirths: improving service supply and community demand

BACKGROUND

Although a number of antenatal and intrapartum interventions have shown some evidence of impact on stillbirth incidence, much confusion surrounds ideal strategies for delivering these interventions within health systems, particularly in low-/middle-income countries where 98% of the world's stillbirths occur. Improving the uptake of quality antenatal and intrapartum care is critical for evidence-based interventions to generate an impact at the population level. This concluding paper of a series of papers reviewing the evidence for stillbirth interventions examines the evidence for community and health systems approaches to improve uptake and quality of antenatal and intrapartum care, and synthesises programme and policy recommendations for how best to deliver evidence-based interventions at community and facility levels, across the continuum of care, to reduce stillbirths.

METHODS

We systematically searched PubMed and the Cochrane Library for abstracts pertaining to community-based and health-systems strategies to increase uptake and quality of antenatal and intrapartum care services. We also sought abstracts which reported impact on stillbirths or perinatal mortality. Searches used multiple combinations of broad and specific search terms and prioritised rigorous randomised controlled trials and meta-analyses where available. Wherever eligible randomised controlled trials were identified after a Cochrane review had been published, we conducted new meta-analyses based on the original Cochrane criteria.

RESULTS

In low-resource settings, cost, distance and the time needed to access care are major barriers for effective uptake of antenatal and particularly intrapartum services. A number of innovative strategies to surmount cost, distance, and time barriers to accessing care were identified and evaluated; of these, community financial incentives, loan/insurance schemes, and maternity waiting homes seem promising, but few studies have reported or evaluated the impact of the wide-scale implementation of these strategies on stillbirth rates. Strategies to improve quality of care by upgrading the skills of community cadres have shown demonstrable impact on perinatal mortality, particularly in conjunction with health systems strengthening and facilitation of referrals. Neonatal resuscitation training for physicians and other health workers shows potential to prevent many neonatal deaths currently misclassified as stillbirths. Perinatal audit systems, which aim to improve quality of care by identifying deficiencies in care, are a quality improvement measure that shows some evidence of benefit for changes in clinical practice that prevent stillbirths, and are strongly recommended wherever practical, whether as hospital case review or as confidential enquiry at district or national level.

CONCLUSION

Delivering interventions to reduce the global burden of stillbirths requires action at all levels of the health system. Packages of interventions should be tailored to local conditions, including local levels and causes of stillbirth, accessibility of care and health system resources and provider skill. Antenatal care can potentially serve as a platform to deliver interventions to improve maternal nutrition, promote behaviour change to reduce harmful exposures and risk of infections, screen for and treat risk factors, and encourage skilled attendance at birth. Following the example of high-income countries, improving intrapartum monitoring for fetal distress and access to Caesarean section in low-/middle-income countries appears to be key to reducing intrapartum stillbirth. In remote or low-resource settings, families and communities can be galvanised to demand and seek quality care through financial incentives and health promotion efforts of local cadres of health workers, though these interventions often require simultaneous health systems strengthening. Perinatal audit can aid in the development of better standards of care, improving quality in health systems. Effective strategies to prevent stillbirth are known; gaps remain in the data, the evidence and perhaps most significantly, the political will to implement these strategies at scale.

[Alternative methods instead of external cephalic version in the event of breech presentation. Review of the literature]

Fetal breech presentation at term is more and more treated by a planned cesarean section. Considering the increased maternal morbidity and mortality in relation to abdominal delivery versus vaginal birth, natural and innocuous methods have been proposed for the promotion of a spontaneous fetal cephalic version during the last two Months of pregnancy. In order to stimulate fetal motility many techniques have been described, either advising postural methods (passive bridge, Indian version, knee-chest position) or using acupuncture (stimulation of the fifth toe and auricular points). Other techniques like chiropractic manipulations or hypnosis have also been tried. Unfortunately, most publications are retrospective and methodologically inaccurate, but it seems that their results may be favorably compared with that of the external cephalic version, a much more complex procedure, which is potentially dangerous and certainly time consuming and expensive. The only randomized controlled trial with a proven efficacy concerns moxibustion (burning herbs to stimulate the acupoint BL 67 or Zhiyin, located beside the outer corner of the fifth toenail).