Blood transfusion in caesarean section obstetrician's perspective

Background: availability of blood,it's products antibiotics and antenatal care has decreased the maternal mortality significantly in the developed countries. maternal mortality is still very high in pakistan. above services are available in pakistan but are not well organized especially those related to blood transfusion. obstetricians practicing in pakistan develop their practices about transfusion depending on the type of facilities available and the type of the patients they treat. aim: to see how the obstetricians in pakistan plan about blood transfusion for caesarean sections methods: authors collected the data prospectively from january 2014 to december 2015. a questionnaire was used to get the opinion of obstetricians working in different cities of pakistan. those obstetricians were selected who had done post graduation and were in practice for more than ten years,irrespective of whether they were working in government or private hospitals. results: among 92 obstetricians who responded 27% were from islamabad/rawalpindi,40.2.1% from lahore,23.9% from karachi and 8.6% from quetta. 79.3% of consultants cross match blood for all caesarean sections while 26.1% don't cross match for all caesareans. 34.8 % of consultants arrange blood for all caesarean sections while 65.3% don't cross match for all caesareans. blood transfusion practices of consultants were different for elective and emergency caesarean sections. all consultants transfuse blood in less than 30% of their elective caesarean sections. in emergency caesarean sections 90% of consultants transfuse blood in less than 30% of their caesarean conclusion: there is no need to cross match and arrange blood for all caesarean section. only small percentage of patients need blood transfusion in caesareans,cross match and arrangement of blood should only be done in selected high risk patients.