Vaginal birth following unmonitored labor in patients with prior cesarean section

Following a previous cesarean section, trial labour followed by spontaneous birth is currently popular but is still debatable. In an effort to assess the risks of unmonitored labor, the outcomes of 165 patients with previous cesarean section who delayed coming to hospital were reviewed. Seventy-one patients were allowed to continue labor and 62 achieved successful vaginal delivery, a success rate of 87.3%. Sixty-one of 71 patients had an unknown uterine scar type prior to birth and, of these, 57 were delivered vaginally. The scar separation rate of this group was found to be 3.5% and the overall scar separation rate in our patients was 3.6%. Other than scar separation and febrile morbidity, no maternal morbidity or mortality was observed. The vast majority (98.4%) of infants delivered vaginally had 5-min Apgar scores of 7 or greater. We suggest that increasing the use of trial labor in patients with prior cesarean section, even in the presence of an unknown scar, may reduce the number of patients laboring in an unmonitored environment who wish to give birth vaginally.