[Complications and morbidity and mortality rates in a postanesthetic intensive care unit]

To describe the complications leading to admission of obstetric patients to intensive care or intensive postanesthetic care units. To describe the morbidity and mortality rates in such patients.

We carried out a descriptive study based on patient records of 23,246 births at the Hospital Materno Infantil belonging to the University Hospitals Virgen del Rocio in Sevilla, Spain, over a 3-year period (2001-2003).

In the 23,246 births reviewed, 746 women (3%) required admission to the obstetric postoperative intensive care unit. The most common reasons were pre-eclampsia in 146 cases (19%), ectopic pregnancy in 97 cases (13%), and postpartum bleeding in 75 cases (10%). Among the 146 cases of preeclampsia treated in the unit, there were 8 cases of eclampsia and 7 of acute pulmonary edema. Two deaths (0.3%) occurred, due to eclampsia in 1 case and to pulmonary thromboembolism in the other.

Obstetric patients are at risk of serious complications that require admission to intensive care or intensive postanesthetic care units, and we therefore emphasize the need to create such units at tertiary care hospitals.