Emergency obstetric hysterectomy at two tertiary centers: a clinical analysis of 11 years experience

This was a retrospective clinical study of emergency hysterectomy performed between 1997 and 2007 at two tertiary hospitals to study incidence, indications and maternal mortality. We included all women who required emergency hysterectomy to control major postpartum hemorrhage after delivery, following a pregnancy of at least 24 weeks' gestation, regardless of the mode of delivery. There were 12 emergency hysterectomies, with a frequency of 0.0726% among 16,521 deliveries. Indications included uterine atony (4 cases), uterine rupture (3 cases), uterine retroversion (2 cases), abnormal placentation (2 cases) and amniotic fluid embolization (1 case). The result was two maternal deaths. Although emergency obstetric hysterectomy is a life saving operation, it is associated with high maternal mortality.