Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Purpose: To understand if having a forceps or vacuum birth affects how likely a person will experience a maternal health complication. Design: A large, population study from the past. Location: Canada (apart from Quebec), using detailed health records from 2010 to 2021. People of interest: People who had a previous cesarean birth and gave birth to one baby head first at term and had a forceps or vacuum birth in this current pregnancy. Methods: Procedure codes about forceps or vacuum birth. A sophisticated statistical method was used to measure the rate with which a person may experience a maternal health complication considering special combinations of unique factors. Outcomes: Maternal health complications were quantified using specific diagnosis and procedure codes showing how serious these complications are at birth and over a month later. Results: Rates of maternal health complications were higher with forceps than vacuum births. In particular, forceps use led to higher rates of severe bleeding. Main message: Using forceps or vacuum may mean higher rates of serious maternal health complications like severe bleeding for people with vaginal birth after a previous cesarean birth.