Accuracy of Postpartum Blood Loss Estimation and Its Correlation with Postpartum Drop in Hemoglobin
Author(s): Amal Abdullah AlManei, Munirah Abdulrahman AlTuraiyef* and Shayma Abdrabalnabi Alsalman
Abstract
Background: Postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) is a serious obstetric complication, and real-time blood loss assessment is critical for PPH diagnosis and therapy. For assessing postpartum blood loss in a vaginal birth, measured the pre-delivery and post-delivery blood hemoglobin and hematocrit. The goal of this study was to determine the accuracy of estimated blood loss compared to a postpartum drop of hemoglobin and hematocrit. Methods: The current study is a correlational cross-sectional study, which is an observational study that analyzes data from a population at a specific point in time. This study was conducted over eight months for term pregnant women who had vaginal delivery in Imam Abdulrahman Al-Faisal Hospital National Guard in Dammam from January 2021. The hospital provides medical care to National Guard employees and their dependents. In addition to other Saudi citizens that need tertiary care. Results: The study included 344 women as a study sample. The mean age of women included in this study was 29.19 ± 5.99 years with a median age of 28 years. The age ranged from 15 to 51 years. The median value of parity among study women was two. Parity ranged from primigravida to eleven. The mean weight among study participants was 76.66 ± 14.69 kg with a median weight of 75 kg. The weight ranged from 45 to 132 kg among study participants. On the other hand, the mean height was 156.56 ± 5.66 cm with the median height of 157 cm. The mean body mass index (BMI) among study participants was 31.32 ± 5.80 with a median BMI of 30.48. The pre-delivery mean value of hemoglobin was 11.27 ± 1.17 g/dl with a median value of 11.3 g/dl while the mean value of pre-delivery hematocrit was 0.352 ± 0.036 with median value of 0.354. Conclusion: Our findings imply that the PPH criteria of less than 500 mL blood loss are unrelated to PPH-related morbidity as determined by hemoglobin drop and postpartum anemia. These data cast doubt on the usefulness of this threshold as a study endpoint for evaluating the efficacy of PPH treatments.