Design of a postpartum hemorrhage and transfusion risk calculator

Postpartum hemorrhage is the major cause of maternal deaths due to childbirth and also responsible for maternal morbidity.

In this study we set out to look the incidence of postpartum hemorrhage in our population, to identify the most important risk factors for postpartum hemorrhage and thus develop a predictive risk calculator for postpartum hemorrhage and transfusion.

data was taken from patients who presented vaginal delivery or cesarean section from January 1 to December 31, 2016, the variables taken into account as risk factors were as follows: Gestational age, history of chronic or gestational hypertension, preeclampsia, previous abortions, parity, previous cesarean section, placenta previa, labor time, and postpartum hemorrhage as the event of interest. An objective quantification was performed on a weight scale in grams for the estimation of bleeding, considering postpartum hemorrhage those with >500 ml in vaginal delivery and >1000 ml of blood loss in cesarean section. Subsequently, a predictive risk calculator was developed using the Naïve Bayes algorithm.

A success rate of 58% was obtained in the identification of patients at high risk of hemorrhage, and 36% for transfusion, with a sensitivity of 50.7% and specificity of 64.06%, identifying as risk factors for postpartum hemorrhage gestational age between 35 and 40 weeks, hypertension and preeclampsia, previous cesarean section, duration of labor <1 h or more than 10 h, placenta previa and previous history of postpartum hemorrhage.

A postpartum hemorrhage risk calculator has been designed, which due to its improved accuracy after incorporation of data becomes a useful tool that will require a larger study population to improve its performance in clinical practice and more similar studies to validate it.