Risk Factors, Incidence, and Morbidity Associated With Obstetric Clostridium difficile Infection

OBJECTIVE:To evaluate the risk factors, incidence, and morbidity associated with the diagnosis of obstetric Clostridium difficile infection. METHODS:We performed a retrospective cohort study on women admitted for delivery using the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Nationwide Inpatient Sample from the United States. The delivery admission records of pregnant women were reviewed between 1999 and 2013. After adjusting for demographic and clinical characteristics, we assessed risk factors for the diagnosis of C difficile infection using unconditional logistic regression. RESULTS:Of the total 13,881,592 births in our cohort, we identified 2,757 (0.02%) admissions for delivery complicated by a diagnosis of C difficile infection. During the study period, the rate of C difficile infection diagnoses among women hospitalized for delivery doubled from 15 (95% CI 11.87–16.96) to 30 (24.42–31.78) per 100,000 deliveries per year (P