Prospective 12 month study of 30 minute decision to delivery intervals for "emergency" caesarean section

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Editorial by James Papers p 1330 Clinical governance requires evidence based standards of clinical relevance to assess performance. The recommended interval between the decision to perform an “emergency” caesarean section and the procedure is 30 minutes 1 2 but there is little objective evidence to support this recommendation. We conducted a prospective 12 month study in a large consultant obstetric teaching unit to examine whether the time between the decision to perform a caesarean section to actual delivery affects the success of the delivery. Time intervals between a decision to deliver and actual delivery were collected prospectively for all caesarean sections from 1 January 1996 to 31 December 1996. Clinical staff were not aware of the audit since by April 1995 all staff had been required to record these times with the guidelines expecting all deliveries within 30 minutes. Caesarean sections were classified as emergency (decision made during labour because of evolving fetal distress, failing …