Episiotomy and its relationship to various clinical variables that influence its performance.

OBJECTIVE: to understand the episiotomy rate and its relationship with various clinical variables.

METHOD: a descriptive, cross-sectional, analytic study of 12,093 births in a tertiary hospital.

VARIABLES: Parity, gestational age, start of labor, use of epidural analgesia, oxytocin usage, position during fetal explusion, weight of neonate, and completion of birth. The analysis was performed with SPSS 19.0.

RESULTS: the global percentage of episiotomies was 50%. The clinical variables that presented a significant association were primiparity (RR=2.98), gestational age >41 weeks (RR=1.2), augmented or induced labor (RR=1.33), epidural analgesia use (RR=1,95), oxytocin use (RR=1.58), lithotomy position during fetal expulsion (RR=6.4), and instrumentation (RR=1.84). Furthermore, maternal age ≥35 years (RR=0.85) and neonatal weight <2500 g (RR=0.8) were associated with a lower incidence of episiotomy.

CONCLUSIONS: episiotomy is dependent on obstetric interventions performed during labor. If we wish to reduce the episiotomy rate, it will be necessary to bear in mind these risk factors when establishing policies for reducing this procedure.