Bakri balloon effectiveness for postpartum hemorrhage: a “real world experience”

Abstract

Introduction: The Bakri balloon has been advocated for management of obstetric hemorrhage, based on several small studies (2–16 patients) where it was over 90% effective.

Objective: To estimate the effectiveness of the Bakri balloon for treating postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) in clinical practice at academic institutions.

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study evaluating efficacy of Bakri balloon use in 35 women with PPH, performed as a chart review. Charts were reviewed to determine if balloon placement was deemed a “success” or “failure”, as well as to abstract relevant demographic and clinical factors. Failure was defined as need for another form of hemorrhage control.

Results: Success rate was 67.57%. Bakri failure was associated with Cesarean section (67% versus 16%, p = 0.031) and predelivery Pitocin (67% versus 28%, p = 0.003) and had more ICU admissions (58% versus 4%, p = 0.0003), transfusions (5.4 red blood cell units versus 1.6, p = 0.007) and hospital days (5.65 versus 3.75, p = 0.011). Reasons for failure were continued bleeding or balloon extrusion.

Conclusion: Our results suggest that the Bakri balloon is useful for treating PPH but not as effective as previously published. When balloon use is effective, however, the maternal morbidity is significantly decreased.

• Bakri balloon
• obstetric hemorrhage
• postpartum hemorrhage
• tamponade

Acknowledgements

All data for this study came from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA and the Department of Perinatal Medicine at Swedish Medical Center, Seattle, WA, USA.

Notes

*Presentations: Oral presentation at Pacific Coast Obstetric and Gynecologic Society meeting (Abstract #0-05), Sunriver, OR, USA, 15 September 2011.