Changes in vaginal breech delivery rates in a single large metropolitan area

Vaginal breech delivery rates have been accepted widely to be in decline and the Term Breech Trial (TBT) has recommended delivery of a breech-presenting infant by elective cesarean section delivery. Our aim was to examine the rate of vaginal delivery of term breech pregnancies in the 8 years before and after the publication of the TBT.

We retrospectively examined vaginal delivery rates of breech presentations over a 16-year period in 3 large tertiary maternity hospitals that serve a single large metropolitan population. All 3 hospitals are of similar size and serve a population with similar risk profile. We also examined rates of perinatal mortality in the 3 hospitals over the study period.

During the 16-year study period, there were 344,259 deliveries among the 3 hospitals; 11,913 of which were breech deliveries. There were 5655 breech deliveries in the 8 years before the publication of the TBT, with a cesarean delivery rate of 76.9%. There were 6258 breech deliveries in the 8 years since publication of the TBT, and the cesarean delivery rate increased to 89.7% (P < .0001). During the 8 years since publication, the rate of vaginal delivery in nulliparous women decreased from 15.3-7.2% (P < .0001). The vaginal breech delivery rate in multiparous women decreased from 32.6-14.8% (P < .0001). The rates of corrected perinatal mortality showed a significant decrease in the last 4 years of the study.

Our study demonstrates that the results and recommendations of the TBT have contributed to decreasing vaginal breech delivery rates, which were already in decline before its publication.