Use of Bakri balloon tamponade in the treatment of postpartum hemorrhage: a series of 50 cases from a tertiary teaching hospital

Objective: Massive postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) is one of the most serious complications during delivery. Hysterectomy is commonly performed when other conventional treatment attempts fail. Bakri balloon tamponade (BBT) is a novel conservative management option for PPH. Little is known of the effectiveness of this procedure. We report a large case series from a tertiary teaching hospital.

Design: Retrospective case series (October 2008-June 2011).

Setting: University teaching hospital.

Population: Forty-four women with massive PPH (blood loss >1000 mL) and six other women with expected high risk of PPH (blood loss <1000 mL) managed by BBT.

Methods: Chart review.

Main outcome measures: Achievement of definitive hemostasis by BBT among the study population.

Results: Among the women treated with BBT, the cause of PPH was uterine atony (16%), cervical rupture (14%), vaginal rupture and/or paravaginal hematoma (22%), placenta previa (18%) and placental retention (30%). The overall success rate was 86%. Seven of the 50 patients needed additional procedures. Of the seven failures, supravaginal uterine amputation or hysterectomy was required in four cases and embolization of the uterine arteries in three cases.

Conclusions: BBT is a simple, readily available, effective and safe procedure for the management of PPH in selective cases. BBT does not exclude the use of other procedures if necessary. Even if BBT failed, it may provide temporary tamponade and time to prepare for other interventions or transportation from local hospital to tertiary centre. We suggest that BBT should be included in the PPH protocol.