Abstract
Background
Vaginal instrumental delivery is a common obstetrical intervention, but its effect on children's later development is not well known.
Aims
To determine if vaginal instrumental delivery is associated with adverse neurodevelopment as measured by school achievement.
Material and methods
We performed a whole‐of‐population study involving linkage of routinely collected perinatal data with school assessments among children born in South Australia from 1999 to 2008. Participants were singleton children born by forceps (n = 5494), ventouse (n = 6988), or normal delivery (n = 80 803). School achievement was measured through performance on the National Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), at around eight years of age. This assessment involved five domains and scores were categorised according to performing at or above National Minimum Standards (NMS). Effects of instrumental versus normal vaginal delivery were analysed via augmented inverse probability weighting (AIPW), taking into account a variety of maternal, perinatal and sociodemographic characteristics.
Results
In unadjusted analyses, instrumental delivery was not associated with poor NAPLAN scores. AIPW analyses also suggested that instrumental delivery had minimal adverse effect on NAPLAN scores, with the largest difference being lower spelling scores among forceps‐delivered children (−0.022 (95% CI −0.0053–0.009)) compared with spontaneous vaginal births. The findings were consistent among exploratory subgroup analyses involving births in the absence of prolonged labour, with APGAR ≥ 9, and among normotensive and non‐diabetic mothers.
Conclusion
In singleton children born at term, instrumental delivery does not have an adverse effect on neurodevelopment as measured by NAPLAN performance at age eight.
Vaginal instrumental delivery is a common obstetrical intervention, but its effect on children's later development is not well known.
Aims
To determine if vaginal instrumental delivery is associated with adverse neurodevelopment as measured by school achievement.
Material and methods
We performed a whole‐of‐population study involving linkage of routinely collected perinatal data with school assessments among children born in South Australia from 1999 to 2008. Participants were singleton children born by forceps (n = 5494), ventouse (n = 6988), or normal delivery (n = 80 803). School achievement was measured through performance on the National Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), at around eight years of age. This assessment involved five domains and scores were categorised according to performing at or above National Minimum Standards (NMS). Effects of instrumental versus normal vaginal delivery were analysed via augmented inverse probability weighting (AIPW), taking into account a variety of maternal, perinatal and sociodemographic characteristics.
Results
In unadjusted analyses, instrumental delivery was not associated with poor NAPLAN scores. AIPW analyses also suggested that instrumental delivery had minimal adverse effect on NAPLAN scores, with the largest difference being lower spelling scores among forceps‐delivered children (−0.022 (95% CI −0.0053–0.009)) compared with spontaneous vaginal births. The findings were consistent among exploratory subgroup analyses involving births in the absence of prolonged labour, with APGAR ≥ 9, and among normotensive and non‐diabetic mothers.
Conclusion
In singleton children born at term, instrumental delivery does not have an adverse effect on neurodevelopment as measured by NAPLAN performance at age eight.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 677-683 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology |
| Volume | 59 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| Early online date | 7 Feb 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 31 Oct 2019 |
Bibliographical note
JL is funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia Partnership Project Grant (1056888) and Centre of Research Excellence (1099422). BWM is supported by a NHMRC Practitioner Fellowship (GNT1082548). BWM reports consultancy for ObsEva, Merck and Guerbet.Keywords
- delivery
- vacuum
- forceps
- medical record linkage
Access to Document
- Accepted Manuscript
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Hsieh, D. C., Smithers, L. G., Black, M. , Lynch, J. W., Dekker, G. , Wilkinson, C. , Stark, M. J. and Mol, B. W. (2019), Implications of vaginal instrumental delivery for children's school achievement: A population‐based linked administrative data study. Aust N Z J Obstet Gynaecol, 59: 677-683., which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/ajo.12952. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.