Non-Invasive Hemoglobin Monitoring of Women Undergoing Cesarean Delivery

Acute and life threatening blood loss is the most common cause of morbidity and mortality for pregnancy women in the US. To date, the only means we have of monitoring the amount of blood loss during a delivery is by the physician estimating the amount. This has been shown to not be very accurate and leads to confusion on when and how much a women should be transfused during a hemorrhage. New devices have been developed over the last few years to monitor blood levels in a accurate and non-invasive fashion. We aim here to use a non-invasive blood monitoring system to evaluate normal blood loss in women undergoing scheduled cesarean delivery. We hope that this will allow us to create a baseline that can be used in subsequent studies to identify women who are losing more blood than normal so that we may intervene faster and avoid unnecessary morbidity.

Inclusion criteria

• Women undergoing scheduled cesarean delivery

Exclusion criteria

• Blood disorders (i.e. thalassemia, sickle cell), hypertensive disorders, obstetric risk factors for hemorrhage