Impact of decision to delivery time of fetal mortality in canine caesarean section in a referral population

In human medicine, there is a recommended decision to delivery interval (DDI), which allows for the optimization of protocols and systematic review of hospital success. In veterinary medicine, no such guideline has been established or investigated. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the interval from the decision to perform a caesarean section and the delivery of the neonates and fetal mortality at the time of surgery. One hundred and fifty canine caesarean sections were evaluated retrospectively. Caesarean cases were dichotomized to those that had at least one perinatal death and cases where all puppies survived. Factors that increased the likelihood of at least one perinatal death at caesarean section were: cases that presented as an emergency caesarean section, the dam presenting with a fetus in the vaginal canal, the dam not having a history of previous caesareans sections, and being multiparous. Even though there was no association of DDI with likelihood of having perinatal death, timing related factors that increased the likelihood of having at least one perinatal death at caesarean section were: cases where total anaesthesia time was longer than 2 h; time from induction to start of surgery was longer than 45 min and surgical time longer than 75 min. In conclusion, time is a factor in the success of canine caesarean sections and further research is needed to better define the optimal decision to delivery time in canine caesarean sections in order to optimize fetal survival and hospital protocol success rates.