Purpose: to evaluate the route of delivery in a group of low-income primipara pregnant women with a previous cesarean section, and the factors associated with the repetition of the cesarean section on the second delivery. Patients and Methods: it was a case-control study including 356 women who were assisted at the Maternity of CAISM/UNICAMP during the period between January 1993 and January 1996. The cases were 153 women whose second delivery was through a cesarean section and the controls were 203 women whose second delivery was vaginal. For analysis, means, standard deviation, Student's t-test, Mann-Whitney test, chi² test and odds ratio (OR) with 95% CI for each factor possibly associated with cesarean section on the second delivery were used. Results: the route of the second delivery was vaginal for 57% of the women. Among the several variables studied, those which showed to be significantly associated with a cesarean section on the second delivery were: higher maternal age (for women over 35 years, OR = 16.4), previous abortions (OR = 2.09), induced labor (OR = 3,83), premature rupture of membranes (OR = 2.83), not having an epidural analgesia performed during labor (OR = 5.3), the finding of some alteration in fetal well-being (OR = 2.7) and the delivery occurring during the afternoon (OR = 1.92). Conclusions: these results indicate that the factors associated with the repetition of cesarean section in women with a previous scar of cesarean section in this population are predominantly medical; however, there is still the possibility of proposing interventions directed to decreasing the rates of repeated cesarean sections.
Cesarean section; Vaginal birth; Risk factors
