This retrospective study was conducted at the maternity
department of the University Teaching Hospital (CHU) of
Yaounde´, Cameroon from 1 January 2007 to 31 December
2008. All women whose vaginal deliveries were conducted
either with forceps or vacuum extraction were recruited.
The main parameters recorded were maternal age, parity,
gestational age, the type of instrument used, the indications,
the fetal birth weight and sex, Apgar score at the first and
fifth minutes and the immediate maternal complications.
Our sample size was calculated using the Lorentz formula.
The prevalence of instrumental delivery in our service was
around 1.9%, the degree of precision was 0.05 and the con-
fidence interval was 0.03. We collected cases over a period
of two years. Delivery room records were assessed for the
total number of deliveries during the period under study.
Data were analysed using SPSS 12.0. The student unpaired
t-test was used for comparison. The level of significance
was P , 0.05