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Cesarean for non-reassuring fetal status: effect of obesity on decision to delivery interval

Journal of Perinatology volume 39, pages 814–819 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Objective

To evaluate the impact of obesity on the decision to delivery interval.

Study design

We compared the interval to delivery in normal, obese (BMI 30–40 kg/m2), and morbidly obese (BMI over 40 kg/m2) women. In a planned sub-analysis, we evaluated those who underwent emergency cesarean.

Results

We included 447 (25.3%) subjects: 157 normal, 200 obese, and 90 morbidly obese. We found no significant difference in the decision to delivery interval, mean ± SD (minutes): 39 ± 24, 44 ± 28, and 46 ± 28, p = 0.10. In the setting of emergency delivery we did find significantly prolonged intervals: 18 ± 8, 23 ± 16, and 30 ± 19 in non-obese, obese, and morbidly obese, respectively, p = 0.04.

Conclusion

We found similar decision to delivery intervals in women of varying BMI. In the setting of emergency cesarean delivery, we found increasing BMI to be associated with significant delays to delivery.

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Acknowledgements

Study data were collected and managed with REDCap software (Research Electronic Data Capture), which is hosted at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center under the Center for Clinical and Translational Science and Training grant support (UL1-RR026314–01 NCRR/NIH). REDCap is a secure, web-based application that was designed to support data capture for research studies to provide (1) an intuitive interface for validated data entry, (2) audit trails for tracking data manipulation and export procedures, (3) automated export procedures for seamless data downloads to common statistical packages and (4) procedures for importing data from external sources. EDF’s contribution to this work was supported by the Perinatal Institute, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, United States

    Emily Turner & Carri R. Warshak

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  1. Emily Turner
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  2. Carri R. Warshak
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Both the authors contributed substantially to the production of this work.

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Correspondence to Carri R. Warshak.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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This work was approved by the local Institutional Review Board.

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Turner, E., Warshak, C.R. Cesarean for non-reassuring fetal status: effect of obesity on decision to delivery interval. J Perinatol 39, 814–819 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41372-019-0351-8

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