Maternal and perinatal outcomes following code red cesarean delivery performed among hospitals with different level of care

Introduction: Code red cesarean delivery (CD) is performed in the presence of an impending danger to maternal or fetal life. The indications, times, and procedures in this setting remain ambiguous. The aim of this study was to evaluate in a cohort of code red CD the impact of the level of care of Obstetric Units, indications, and decision to delivery interval CD on maternal and perinatal outcomes.

Methods: This was a multicenter retrospective study conducted at four maternal units (two level-2 University Hospitals and two level-1 Community Hospitals) on a cohort of women who underwent code red CD between 2018 and 2021. An independent team of experts performed retrospective audits to assess the appropriateness of indications.

Results: A cohort of 168 code red CDs were included. The most frequent indications were severely abnormal fetal heart rate patterns (41.7 %) and sentinel events (38.1 %). Decision to delivery interval (DDI) was similar between different level of care (20.7 vs 21.4 min, p = 0.66) and didn't affect adverse perinatal outcome. Rates of appropriate indications were higher in the level-2 than level-1 hospitals (80.2 % vs 65 %, p = 0.036), with worse adverse perinatal outcome in the former than the latter (43.4 % vs 21.1 %, p = 0.002).At multivariate analysis, worse perinatal outcomes were independently associated with indications for code red CD (P = 0.01) and level-2 units (P = 0.005).

Conclusions: Level-1 hospitals guarantee a promptness of response comparable to that of level-2 centers in dealing with emergency in CD, however with lower rates of appropriate indications. Indications for code red CD but not DDI are associated with worse perinatal outcomes.