IMR Press / CEOG / Volume 49 / Issue 7 / DOI: 10.31083/j.ceog4907159
Open Access Original Research
Postpartum Changes in Uterine Position and Occurrence of Cesarean Scar Defects: A Retrospective Observational Study
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1 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, 310016 Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
2 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiaotong University, 200240 Shanghai, China
3 Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Wuxi Second Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 214121 Wuxi, Jiangsu, China
*Correspondence: lfbhj2005@sina.com (Fengbing Liang); doctorpan@zju.edu.cn (Hongjie Pan)
These authors contributed equally.
Academic Editor: Gianluca Caruso
Clin. Exp. Obstet. Gynecol. 2022, 49(7), 159; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.ceog4907159
Submitted: 19 April 2022 | Revised: 26 May 2022 | Accepted: 27 May 2022 | Published: 12 July 2022
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Abstract

Background: Over the past several decades, rates of cesarean delivery have increased considerably worldwide. As cesarean section (CS) may also result in changes to uterine position, the relationship between delivery modes, postpartum uterine position and cesarean scar defect (CSD) warrants elucidation. Materials & Methods: Here, we conducted a retrospective observational study evaluating 921 women (482 underwent vaginal delivery and 439 underwent CS) who had undergone transvaginal ultrasonography (TVU) early in their pregnancy (<8 weeks). Subsequent ultrasonography was performed 3–6 months postpartum to evaluate uterine position for all women and saline infusion sonohysterography (SIS) for women who underwent CS. The outcome was the uterine position for all of the women and the CSD for women underwent CS. Results: A total of 716 women (371 of whom underwent vaginal delivery and 345 of whom underwent CS) were concluded in the study. Postpartum uterine position was found to be significantly changed from anteflexion (81.9% for vaginal delivery and 82.0% for CS) to retroflexion (29.1% for vaginal delivery and 46.7% for CS) after both vaginal (p < 0.001) and CS (p < 0.001) deliveries. CSD was diagnosed by SIS in 146 of 345 (42.3 95% CI 37.1–47.6) women that underwent CS. CSD prevalence among anteflexed and retroflexed uterus were 46.7% (95% CI 39.5%–54.0%) and 37.3% (95% CI 29.7%–44.8%), respectively (p = 0.08). Conclusions: This study revealed that uterus became retroflexed in patients who underwent either CS or vaginal deliveries. CS resulted in a significantly greater proportion of retroflexed uterus than did vaginal delivery. CSD prevalence among women with retroflexed uterus in the postpartum has no difference with those with anteflexed uterus.

Keywords
cesarean scar defect
cesarean section
mechanical analysis
uterine flexion
vaginal delivery
Funding
YG2017QN38/medical engineering cross youth funds from Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Y202146291/Education Department of Zhejiang Province
Figures
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