Maternal consequences of caesarean section. A retrospective study of intra-operative and postoperative maternal complications of caesarean section during a 10-year period

Objectives: This study was performed to assess the intra-operative surgical complications and postoperative maternal morbidity rate of caesarean section. Study design: A total of 2647 women, delivered by caesarean section in our department between 1983 and 1992, were studied retrospectively. Three caesarean section groups were formed: (1) primary elective, (2) primary acute, without any effort to deliver vaginally, and (3) secondary acute, due to a failed vaginal delivery. The Student's- t-, Fisher-exact- and X 2-test were used for statistical analysis. Rusults: The overall maternal intra-operative complication rate was 14.8%. The most common complications were lacerations of the uterine corpus (10.1%) and bloodloss ≥1000 ml (7.3%). The complication rate of the secondary group (23.4%) was significantly higher ( p