A Practice Improvement Project to Reduce Cesarean Surgical Site Infection Rates (original) (raw)

2016, Nursing for Women's Health

I n the United States, cesarean birth is the most common surgical procedure performed on women of childbearing age (Conroy et al., 2012). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2014, 1,284,160 women experienced a cesarean birth, which accounted for 32.2% of all births in the United States (Hamilton, Martin, Osterman, Curtin, & Matthews, 2015). Although the number is down slightly from the 32.8% reported in the 2010 through 2012 data, these numbers remain high despite recent e orts by those in the obstetric health care community (Bingham, Ruhl, & Cockey, 2013) to reduce nonmedically indicated cesarean births and the induction of labor before 39 weeks gestation. Puerperal infections are recognized as one of the major causes of maternal mortality, as are postpartum hemorrhage, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, embolism, and cardiovascular events (Creanga et al., 2015). ese maternal causes of death are essentially the same worldwide (Conroy et al., 2012).