Obstetric Procedures 1988/89

Obstetric Procedures 1988/89 – 1997/98
Date of publication: September 1999

This report provides statistics on obstetric procedures performed as part of publicly funded maternity care in New Zealand’s hospitals over the last ten years. Over that period more than 95% of all births in New Zealand occurred in hospital. Very few of the procedures analysed here are ever performed in the home setting.

The report analyses the National Minimum Dataset (NMDS) data for each of the years 1988/89 through to 1997/98. The NMDS, held by the New Zealand Health Information Service (NZHIS) of the Ministry of Health, contains both diagnostic and socio–demographic information about all women who were delivered in hospitals. This information is collected and reported by the hospitals themselves (including St Georges private hospital). In general, data are entered by hospital coders rather than directly by clinicians.

The report covers five procedures associated with deliveries, namely:

Caesarean sections
instrumental deliveries; (forceps and Ventouse vacuum extractions)
induced deliveries; (medical inductions and artificial rupture of membranes to induce labour)
episiotomies (cutting the woman’s perineum at the time of delivery)
epidural analgesia.

The specific codes used to define these procedures are given in the Appendix.

National data about procedures are analysed against age, socioeconomic need group, and ethnicity over the most recent two years. Data for the 10–year period are presented for each region and provider (both Health and Hospital Services (HHSs – formerly known as Crown Health Enterprises or CHEs) and publicly funded private providers). The discussion section of the report offers some observations about the data.

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