The effect of initiating neuraxial analgesia service on the rate of cesarean delivery in Hubei, China: a 16-month retrospective study

BACKGROUND: No Pain Labor &Delivery (NPLD) is a nongovernmental project to increase access to safe neuraxial analgesia through specialized training. This study explores the change in overall cesarean delivery (CD) rate and maternal request CD(MRCD) rate in our hospital after the initiation of neuraxial analgesia service (NA). METHODS: NA was initiated in May 1st 2015 by the help of NPLD. Since then, the application of NA became a routine operation in our hospital, and every parturient can choose to use NA or not. The monthly rates of NA, CD, MRCD, multiparous women, intrapartum CD, episiotomy, postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), operative vaginal delivery and neonatal asphyxia were analyzed from January 2015 to April 2016. RESULTS: The rate of NA in our hospital was getting increasingly higher from 26.1% in May 2015 to 44.6% in April 2016 (p < 0.001); the rate of CD was 48.1% (3577/7360) and stable from January to May 2015 (p>0.05), then decreased from 50.4% in May 2015 to 36.3% in April 2016 (p < 0.001); the rate of MRCD was 11.4% (406/3577) and also stable from January to May 2015 (p>0.05), then decreased from 10.8% in May 2015 to 5.7% in April 2016 (p < 0.001). At the same time, the rate of multiparous women remained unchanged during the 16 month of observation (p>0.05). There was a negative correlation between the rate of NA and rate of overall CD, r = − 0.782 (95%CI [− 0.948, − 0.534], p<0.001), and between the utilization rate of NA and rate of MRCD, r = − 0.914 (95%CI [− 0.989, − 0.766], p<0.001). The rates of episiotomy, PPH, operative vaginal delivery and neonatal asphyxia in women who underwent vaginal delivery as well as the rates of intrapartum CD, neonatal asphyxia, and PPH in women who underwent CD remained unchanged, and there was no correlation between the rate of NA and anyone of those rates from January 1st 2015 to April 30th 2016 (p>0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that the rates of CD and MRCD in our department were significantly decreased from May 1st 2015 to April 30th 2016, which may be due to the increasing use of NA during vaginal delivery with the help of NPLD.