Mode of delivery and other pregnancy outcomes of patients with documented scoliosis

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore whether scoliosis is a risk factor for adverse obstetric outcomes and specifically for cesarean delivery (CD) and labor dystocia. Association between scoliosis and pregnancy outcome was studied before. Confounding conclusions prevent proper counseling of patients. Appropriate statistical analysis of a suitable cohort is helpful in resolving this issue. A retrospective population-based study comparing all singleton pregnancies of women with and without documented scoliosis was conducted. Deliveries occurred between the years 1988 and 2009. Multiple logistic regression models were used to control for confounders. Out of 229,116 patients which were included in our cohort, 0.043% (n = 98) had a documented scoliosis. These patients had higher rates of fertility treatments (7.1% vs. 1.6%; p < 0.001). Scoliosis was found to be significantly associated with labor induction (36.7% vs. 26.3 %; p = 0.02) and cesarean deliveries (21.4% vs. 13.1%; p = 0.014). Using multiple logistic regression models, with CD as the outcome variable, controlling for confounders such as nulliparity, labor induction and maternal age, scoliosis was not found to be an independent risk factor for CD (OR = 1.56, 95% CI 1.9–2.7; p = 0.121). Scoliosis is not a risk factor for adverse pregnancy outcome, and specifically for labor dystocia.

Keywords::

• cesarean delivery
• labor dystocia
• pregnancy outcome
• scoliosis

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing the paper.