Materials and Methods
This was a retrospective descriptive study of
equal or more than 24 weeks gestational age pregnant
women with evidence of umbilical cord prolapse who
delivered at Ramathibodi Hospital from 1 January 1998
to 31 December 2007. There were 25,707 deliveries.
The pregnant women with major fetal anomaly (the
anomaly which by themselves effected to severe birth
asphyxia and early neonatal death) e.g. heart, lung or
brain diseases were excluded from this study. After the
research was approved by the Ethics Committee on
Human Rights Related to Researches Involving Human
Subjects, Faculty of Medicine Ramathibodi Hospital,
Mahidol University, the maternal and fetal medical
records of umbilical cord prolapse cases were reviewed
for parity, age, gestational age, fetal presentation,
interval from diagnosis to delivery, status of membranes,
mode of delivery, baby weight and Apgar scores. Then
the data was analyzed for prevalence and perinatal
outcomes. Because of the limitation of the retrospective
data, only some available perinatal outcomes could be
studied in this research such as rates of severe birth
asphyxia (Apgar scores at 1 minute ≤ 3) and perinatal
mortality.
Results
Prevalence
There were 42 cases of umbilical cord prolapse
with the prevalence of 0.16% or 1.6 in 1,000 births.
Four cases occurred before admission and thirty-eight
cases occurred after admission