• Annals of surgery · Aug 2011

    The pregnant motor vehicle accident casualty: adherence to basic workup and admission guidelines.

    • Hen Y Sela, Carolyn F Weiniger, Moshe Hersch, Arnon Smueloff, Neri Laufer, and Sharon Einav.
    • Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel. hys2104@columbia.edu
    • Ann. Surg. 2011 Aug 1;254(2):346-52.

    ObjectiveTo investigate the workup/treatment provided to pregnant motor vehicle accident (MVA) casualties in a mature trauma system. Adherence to recommendations was used to measure quality of care.BackgroundMVAs affect approximately 3% of pregnant women. Trauma casualty outcome improves after implementation of guidelines.MethodsA 5-year audit of clinical practice in 2 university hospitals with a trauma call system where the general surgeon is the primary care physician. Trauma guidelines (general/specific to treatment of pregnant MVA casualties) were used to examine adherence. Pregnant casualties aged >18 years, injured in a private vehicle were identified via computerized hospital databases. Data relevant to the study were extracted from ED/admission files.ResultsAmong the 236 casualties included there were no maternal deaths. Six casualties (2.5%) had significant injuries and 3 (1.2%) required surgery (all within 24-hours of admission). Contrary to established procedure, maternal vital signs were often not documented. In contrast, fetal viability was usually documented; most casualties underwent ultrasound fetal evaluation (233 of 236, 98.7%) and those with viable pregnancies underwent fetal heart rate monitoring (162 of 169, 96%). A sixth of the MVA casualties (16%) were examined only by an obstetrician. All casualties were admitted but only 15 (6.4%) were admitted in accordance with guidelines. Readmission rates (1.3%) were similar to those observed in nonpregnant casualties.ConclusionsPregnant MVA casualties are underexamined and overadmitted. Concerns regarding potential obstetrical complications distract medical attention away from basic trauma guidelines. Education programs should emphasize prioritizing the mother and adhering to the basic rules of trauma care despite the presence of the fetus.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…