VAGINAL OPERATIVE DELIVERIES IN ITALY

Objective. To analyze the trends in vaginal operative deliveries in It aly. Design. Analysis of information on all deliveries after the 28th week of gestation, routinely collected by the Italian Central Institut e of Statistics using a standard form. Setting. National data on all I talian deliveries in the period 1981-85. Subjects. All deliveries occu rred in Italy in the period. Results. Forceps and vacuum delivery were reported in 1981 respectively in 0.9 and 2.1/100 deliveries. Similar percentages were observed during the whole considered quinquennium for vacuum extraction, but the forceps delivery rate decreased to 0.6/100 in 1985. Nulliparous women more frequently had an operative vaginal d elivery: the rates of forceps and vacuum deliveries were respectively 1.1 and 3.7/100 in nulliparae and 0.3 and 1.0 in women reporting one o r more previous births. There was a direct relationship between vacuum delivery rate and birth weight: vacuum deliveries were reported for r espectively 0.9 and 2.3/100 infants weighing less than 2500 g and grea ter than or equal to 2500 g. Likewise, vaginal operative deliveries we re more frequent in term or post-term births, and vacuum deliveries am ong singleton births than multiple ones (2.3 vs 1.7/100 deliveries). C onclusions. Operative vaginal delivery rates in Italy in the mid 1980' s were lower than in most developed countries. The reasons for forceps and vacuum extraction were similar to other developed countries with regard to obstetric determinants, but some differences emerged for soc io-demographic factors.