Methods of Placental Delivery and the Amount of Blood Loss During Cesarean Section

Cesarean section (CS) is one of the most commonly performed major abdominal operations in women worldwide and its rate is increasing dramatically every year.

Some of the reported short-term morbidities include hemorrhage, postoperative fever and endometritis. The method of delivering the placenta is one procedure that may contribute to an increase or decrease in the morbidity of CS.

On an average 0.5-1 liter of blood is lost during CS, many variable techniques have been tried to reduce this blood loss. Such techniques include finger splitting versus scissor cutting of incision, in situ stitching verses exteriorization and stitching of uterus , and finally spontaneous or manual removal of the placenta.

Two common methods used to deliver the placenta at CS are cord traction and manual removal.

Manual removal of the placenta which the obstetrician introduce his hand into the uterine cavity to cleave the placenta from the decidua basalis as soon as possible after the delivery of the infant and controlled cord traction in which the obstetrician do external uterine massage and gentle traction on the exposed umbilical cord to facilitate placental delivery.

Opinions differ about the best for placental delivery technique at CS. Some trials showed a reduced risk of blood loss with controlled cord traction (3) and others showed that manual removal of placenta at CS do not increase perioperative blood loss.

Authors concluded that manual delivery of the placenta was significantly associated with greater operative blood loss and greater decrease in postoperative hemoglobin levels and postpartum maternal infectious morbidity but with shorter operative time compared with spontaneous placental separation .

In addition, it is known that the blood loss at CS delivery is difficult to estimate, and numerous different methods including serial change in hematocrit (Hct), hemoglobin (Hb) level, visual estimation and the gravimetric method are described.

A low, but significant, correlation was found between visually estimated blood loss and perioperative hemoglobin change in women delivering by CS. However, hemoglobin , hematocrit levels and visual estimation are the most commonly used technique for estimating blood loss at delivery.

Inclusion criteria

• All informed and consented women undergoing elective or emergency CS will be legible for enrollment into the study

Exclusion criteria

• Multiple gestation.
• Pregnancy below 34 weeks.
• Severe maternal anemia.
• Severe pre-eclampsia
• Prolonged labor.
• Prolonged rupture of the membranes with fever.
• Placental abruption.
• Placenta previa.
• Placenta accreta.
• Clotting disorders.
• Current or previous history of a significant disease including heart disease, liver, renal disorders.