Overuse of cesarean delivery at Al-Saudi Hospital, Hajjah, Yemen

Abstract

Background: The prevalence of cesarean section delivery continues to rise in most of the settings including the developing countries. Different indications for cesarean delivery might be responsible for this rise.

Methods: The study was conducted during one year period of first May 2012 through 30 of April 2013 at Al-Saudi Hospital in Hajjah city, Yemen to investigate incidence, indications and type of cesarean delivery. The medical files were reviewed and medical and obstetrics data were retrieved
from the files (age, parity, education, and mode of delivery).

Results: Out of 1728 deliveries, 1211 (70%) were vaginal (include 1.3% instrumental deliveries) and 517 (30%) were cesarean deliveries. The vast majority of the cesarean deliveries were emergency ones (410; 79.3%). The different indications of cesarean deliveries were; hypertensive disorder of pregnancy (27.1%); repeated cesareans (22.8%), antepartum  hemorrhage (14.5%), obstructed labor (10.6 %), cephalopelvic  disproportion (10.6 %), bad obstetric history (1.4 %), others (2.5 %) and combined indications ( 5%).

Conclusion: There is a high incidence of cesarean deliveries in this setting. Measures have to be taken (increase instrumental delivery, trial of labour and trial of scar) to reduce this high incidence of cesarean deliveries.

Keywords: pregnancy; cesarean delivery; indications; Yemen.