Reported Complications From Immersion During Labor and Delivery
Individual case reports and case series have noted complications for the mother and the neonate (17–25) that highlight potential risks from immersion during labor and delivery. Because the denominators are not uniformly reported, the exact incidence of complications is difficult to assess. Some of the reported concerns include higher risk of maternal and neonatal infections, particularly with ruptured membranes; difficulties in neonatal thermoregulation; umbilical cord avulsion and umbilical cord rupture while the newborn infant is lifted or maneuvered through and from the underwater pool at delivery, which leads to serious hemorrhage and shock; respiratory distress and hyponatremia that results from tub-water aspiration (drowning or near drowning); and seizures and perinatal asphyxia (23).
Among this list of complications, given its potential seriousness, the possibility of a neonate aspirating water during birth while immersed has been the focus of understandable concern. Alerdice et al (26) summarized case reports of adverse neonatal outcomes, including drownings and near drownings. The case reports included immersion births in hospitals and at home. Subsequently, a study by Byard and Zuccollo reported four cases of severe respiratory distress in neonates after water birth, one of whom died of overwhelming sepsis from Pseudomonas aeruginosa (19). Although it has been claimed that neonates delivered into the water do not breathe, gasp, or swallow water because of the protective “diving reflex,” studies in experimental animals and a vast body of literature from meconium aspiration syndrome demonstrate that, in compromised fetuses and neonates, the diving reflex is overridden (27, 28), which leads potentially to gasping and aspiration of the surrounding fluid.
Morbidity and mortality, including respiratory complications, suggested in case series were not seen in the 2009 Cochrane synthesis of RCTs, which concluded that, “there is no evidence of increased adverse effects to the fetus/neonate or woman from laboring in water or water birth” (5). This conclusion, however, should be tempered by several concerns, including the issue of the power of the sample size to identify rare but potentially serious outcomes. In this regard, in an RCT (29) excluded from the Cochrane analysis (because included labors all involved dystocia), 12% of neonates who were delivered in the immersion arm required admission to the neonatal intensive care unit, as compared with none in the group delivered without immersion.
Reported Complications From Immersion During Labor and DeliveryIndividual case reports and case series have noted complications for the mother and the neonate (17–25) that highlight potential risks from immersion during labor and delivery. Because the denominators are not uniformly reported, the exact incidence of complications is difficult to assess. Some of the reported concerns include higher risk of maternal and neonatal infections, particularly with ruptured membranes; difficulties in neonatal thermoregulation; umbilical cord avulsion and umbilical cord rupture while the newborn infant is lifted or maneuvered through and from the underwater pool at delivery, which leads to serious hemorrhage and shock; respiratory distress and hyponatremia that results from tub-water aspiration (drowning or near drowning); and seizures and perinatal asphyxia (23).Among this list of complications, given its potential seriousness, the possibility of a neonate aspirating water during birth while immersed has been the focus of understandable concern. Alerdice et al (26) summarized case reports of adverse neonatal outcomes, including drownings and near drownings. The case reports included immersion births in hospitals and at home. Subsequently, a study by Byard and Zuccollo reported four cases of severe respiratory distress in neonates after water birth, one of whom died of overwhelming sepsis from Pseudomonas aeruginosa (19). Although it has been claimed that neonates delivered into the water do not breathe, gasp, or swallow water because of the protective “diving reflex,” studies in experimental animals and a vast body of literature from meconium aspiration syndrome demonstrate that, in compromised fetuses and neonates, the diving reflex is overridden (27, 28), which leads potentially to gasping and aspiration of the surrounding fluid.Morbidity and mortality, including respiratory complications, suggested in case series were not seen in the 2009 Cochrane synthesis of RCTs, which concluded that, “there is no evidence of increased adverse effects to the fetus/neonate or woman from laboring in water or water birth” (5). This conclusion, however, should be tempered by several concerns, including the issue of the power of the sample size to identify rare but potentially serious outcomes. In this regard, in an RCT (29) excluded from the Cochrane analysis (because included labors all involved dystocia), 12% of neonates who were delivered in the immersion arm required admission to the neonatal intensive care unit, as compared with none in the group delivered without immersion.
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