Perinatal Outcome: A Comparative Study between Emergency and Elective Caesarean Section at A Tertiary Care Hospital

Introduction: Caesarean delivery is the most commonly performed lifesaving procedure in obstetrics. Caesarean section can be done in emergency and elective basis. There has been rising trend of caesarean section over the last few decades. Both the caesarean sections are associated with fetal risks than vaginal delivery. Objectives: To assess and compare the perinatal outcomes of emergency and elective caesarean sections. Methods: It was a cross-sectional comparative study done in Civil Service Hospital of Nepal over the period of one year starting from January 2021 to December 2021. All the patients who underwent caesarean section during the study period were taken into study. Data regarding perinatal outcomes were analysed by SPSS software. Results: During the study period, there were 1349 total deliveries. Caesarean sections accounted for 52.2% (n=705) of all deliveries. There were a total of 373 (52.9%) emergency CS and 332 (47.1%) elective CS. Most common indications of emergency and elective caesarean section were fetal distress and previous caesarean section respectively.Out of 713 new-born’s, 26 (6.9%) were preterm in emergency CS, 4 (2.1%) in elective group which was statistically significant (X2 <0.001). Regarding APGAR score, need of resuscitation, nursery admission, respiratory distress syndrome, and neonatal intensive care unit transfer, neonates delivered by emergency basis had more number of babies than elective. However, there was no significant difference. There was one early neonatal death in the study period. Conclusion: Caesarean section is in rising trend of late. However, timely decision making skills can certainly lead to better perinatal outcome in caesarean sections.