Practices for prevention, diagnosis and management of postpartum haemorrhage: impact of a regional multifaceted intervention

Objective  To evaluate the effectiveness of a multifaceted intervention on practices for prevention, diagnosis and management of postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) and on the prevalence of major PPH in a French perinatal network. Design  Quasi-experimental before-and-after survey. Setting  All maternity units (n = 19) of a French administrative region, operating as a perinatal network. Sample  One representative sample of all women delivering in the network, one representative sample of women with PPH deliveries and an exhaustive sample of women with major PPH. Methods  The multifaceted intervention took place between February 2003 and March 2004. Information was retrospectively collected for two periods, 2002 (before the intervention) and 2005 (after). Main outcome measures  Practices for prevention, diagnosis and management of PPH and prevalence of major PPH. Results  After the intervention, the pharmacological prevention of PPH increased from 58.8% to 75.9% of vaginal deliveries (P < 10−4), and the use of blood collecting bags from 3.9% to 76.3% (P < 10−4), but initial PPH management did not change significantly. However, the median delay for second-line pharmacological treatment was significantly shortened [from 80 min (35–130) in 2002 to 32.5 min (20–75) in 2005]. An increase was observed in the use of surgery for PPH (0.06% versus 0.12% of deliveries; P = 0.03) and in blood transfusions (0.18% versus 0.33%; P = 0.01). The prevalence of major PPH did not change (0.80% versus 0.86% of deliveries; P = 0.62). Conclusions  The intervention was effective at improving PPH-related preventive and diagnostic practices in a perinatal network. Improving management practices and reducing the prevalence of major PPH might require a different intervention design.