Reasons for delay to perform emergency caesarean section among parturients in a tertiary health care facility in south-south Nigeria

Abstract

The low-resource setting prevalent in developing countries is associated with a lower quality of health care delivery to the populace largely due to lack of facilities. Aim: This study set out to determine the reasons for delay to perform emergency caesarean section in the centre studied. Methods: This was a review of the case notes of women who had emergency caesarean section during the period of the study. Results: The prevalence of caesarean section during the study period was 23% with emergency caesarean section rate of 66.4%. The modal (43.3%) age group was 26-30 years among parturients in the study population with half of the women being multiparous. A vast majority (79.3%) of the women had booked and obtained antenatal care in the centre. Failure to progress in labour was responsible for the majority (60.0%) of the caesarean section among the women followed by fetal distress, which accounted for 28.7%. A large number (43.3%) of the parturients were delayed for 1.1 to 3.0 hours and only 6 (4.1%) of the parturients had a minimal delay of half an hour or less. In 55.3% of the parturients, the reasons for delay were not stated in their case notes; although, 20.7% of the parturients were delayed because the theatre was engaged.CONCLUSION: Lack of essential health care facilities led to undue delay to perform emergency caesarean section in the centre studied.