Objective: Investigate maternal and neonatal outcomes associated with breech presentation in planned community births in the United States, including outcomes associated with types of breech presentation (i.e., frank, complete, footling/kneeling).
Design: Secondary analysis of prospective cohort data from a national perinatal data registry (MANA Stats).
Setting: Planned community birth (homes and birth centers), United States.
Sample: Individuals with a term, singleton gestation (N = 71,943) planning community birth at labor onset.
Methods: Descriptive statistics to calculate associations between types of breech presentation and maternal and neonatal outcomes.
Main outcome measures: Maternal: intrapartum/postpartum transfer, hospitalization, cesarean, hemorrhage, severe perineal laceration, duration of labor stages and membrane rupture Neonatal: transfer, hospitalization, NICU admission, congenital anomalies, umbilical cord prolapse, birth injury, intrapartum/neonatal death.
Results: One percent (n = 695) of individuals experienced breech birth (n = 401, 57.6% vaginally). Most fetuses presented frank breech (57%), with 19% complete, 18% footling/kneeling, and 5% unknown type of breech presentation. Among all breech labors, there were high rates of intrapartum transfer and cesarean birth compared to cephalic presentation (OR 9.0, 95% CI 7.7-10.4 and OR 18.6, 95% CI 15.9-21.7, respectively), with no substantive difference based on parity, planned site of birth, or level of care integration into the health system. For all types of breech presentations, there was increased risk for nearly all assessed neonatal outcomes including hospital transfer, NICU admission, birth injury, and umbilical cord prolapse. Breech presentation was also associated with increased risk of intrapartum/neonatal death (OR 8.5, 95% CI 4.4-16.3), even after congenital anomalies were excluded.
Conclusions: All types of breech presentations in community birth settings are associated with increased risk of adverse neonatal outcomes. These research findings contribute to informed decision-making and reinforce the need for breech training and research and an increase in accessible, high-quality care for planned vaginal breech birth in US hospitals.
Copyright: © 2024 Schafer et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.