Cesarean section for the prevention of postpartum fecal incontinence: a Meta-analysis

Abstract

Objective To systematically evaluate the influence of cesarean section on the incidence of postpartum fecal incontinence. Methods The relevant literature of the impact of cesarean section on the postpartum fecal incontinence were searched in Chinese databases of CNKI, China Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), WanFang, VIP and English databases of PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, Cochrane Library. The retrieval time was from the establishment of the database to 2 February, 2022. After independent literature screening, data extraction and quality evaluation by 2 researchers, Meta-analysis was performed using Review Manager 5.3 software. Results A total of 8 articles were included, enrolling 5 507 subjects. Meta-analysis results showed that there was no significant difference in the incidence of postpartum fecal incontinence between cesarean section and vaginal delivery ［OR=0.75, 95%CI (0.56, 1.02), P=0.07］.Conclusion Compared with vaginal delivery, cesarean section has no obvious advantages in preventing the occurrence of postpartum fecal incontinence and should not be routinely used as a way to prevent and reduce the occurrence of postpartum fecal incontinence in pregnant women.

Keywords

• cesarean section
• vaginal delivery
• fecal incontinence
• pelvic floor disease
• meta-analysis