The association of mode of delivery and dyspareunia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

This meta-analysis aimed to examine the association between the mode of delivery and dyspareunia worldwide. Epidemiologic studies evaluating the link between the mode of delivery and dyspareunia (published up to July 2019) were included in this research. These studies were selected by searching several databases such as MEDLINE, ClinicalTraial.gov, PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar and considering the list of selected articles extracted from references. Then, meta-analyses, subgroup analyses and meta-regressions of the studies were conducted to evaluate the association between the mode of delivery and dyspareunia. In this study, 23 out of 1099 articles were identified and used in the final analysis. Dyspareunia differed according to the mode of delivery although this difference was not statistically significant. In terms of the mode of delivery, a difference was found between instrumental vaginal delivery and caesarean section, but it was not significant. It seems that more studies with a larger sample size should be considered to determine the difference.

Keywords:

• Dyspareunia
• mode of delivery
• postpartum

Disclosure statement

There was no conflict of interest in this study.

Additional information

Funding

This study was partially supported by grants from the Neyshabur University of Medical Sciences, Iran and University of Medical Sciences, Iran [Grant number: 981781]. Also supported by Research Council at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences.