Uterine massage for preventing postpartum hemorrhage at cesarean delivery: Which evidence?

BACKGROUND: Cesarean delivery could be complicated by postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), the first cause of maternal death.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the efficacy of uterine massage in preventing postpartum hemorrhage at cesarean delivery.

DATA SOURCES: Electronic databases from their inception until October 2017.

STUDY ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA, PARTICIPANTS, AND INTERVENTIONS: We included all RCTs comparing uterine massage alone or as part of the active management of labor before or after delivery of the placenta, or both, with non-massage in the setting of cesarean delivery.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: The primary outcome was PPH, defined as blood loss >1000 mL. Meta-analysis was performed using the random effects model of DerSimonian and Laird, to produce summary treatment effects in terms of mean difference (MD) or relative risk (RR) with 95% confidence interval (CI).

RESULTS: Only 3 RCTs comparing uterine massage vs no uterine massage were found. The quality of these 3 trials in general was very low with high or unclear risk of bias. All of them included only women in the setting of spontaneous vaginal delivery and none of them included cesarean delivery, and therefore the meta-analysis was not feasible.

CONCLUSIONS: There is not enough evidence to determine if uterine massage prevents postpartum hemorrhage at cesarean delivery.