Introduction Postpartum hemorrhage is a leading cause of maternal mortality worldwide. Performance of a postpartum hemorrhage risk assessment prior to delivery has been recommended to identify patients at higher risk for hemorrhage to support advanced planning for optimal response. The objective of this quality improvement initiative is to evaluate the transfusion and hemorrhage rates for patients at low, moderate, and high risk for postpartum hemorrhage by utilizing standardized risk assessment. Methods and materials A historic cohort study was performed among women delivering from March 2017 to June 2018 at a single United States military tertiary medical center. A postpartum hemorrhage risk assessment was performed utilizing the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative toolkit for all patients admitted to Labor and Delivery and when the postpartum hemorrhage risk increased during the intrapartum period. An electronic log was reviewed to determine blood loss volume, change in hematocrit, and transfusion rates in patients at low, moderate, and high risk for postpartum hemorrhage for all deliveries, stratified by delivery type. Results There were 3,377 deliveries during the study period with 145 excluded due to lack of assigned risk category. The high-risk group (12.3% of deliveries) was 4.3 times more likely to receive a blood transfusion, 2.9 times more likely to have a blood loss over 1000 mL, and 2.1 times more likely to have a transfusion or hematocrit drop of 10 points when compared with the low-risk group (69.4% of deliveries). Of those transfused, the majority were classified as low risk as this was the most common assignment. Conclusion Risk stratification can differentiate low from high-risk patients for postpartum hemorrhage and associated transfusion or change in hematocrit. However, the majority of patients who receive a transfusion will be classified as low or moderate risk. Thus, all patients should be monitored closely and treated aggressively to prevent morbidity.
Keywords: blood transfusion; postpartum hemorrhage; risk stratification.
Copyright © 2019, Hussain et al.