Use of Cholera Beds in the Delivery Room: a Simple and Appropriate Method for Direct Measurement of Postpartum Bleeding

Abundant obstetric bleeding is a predominant cause of maternal death, with the immediate postpartum period being the most critical time. Visual estimation of postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) often leads to severe underestimation and delay in treatment. Various methods have been developed in order to measure blood loss accurately, but none has proved appropriate in poor settings. The aim of this study was to present a method which is appropriate for measuring postpartum blood loss in a setting with limited resources. Parturient women (n = 814) with active management of third stage of labour in Luanda, Angola were studied. Vaginal bleeding immediately after birth and during the first 2 hours postpartum was collected using a combination of a plastic sheet and a bucket belowa cholera bed, in which the women rested during postpartum observation. Monitoring postpartum blood loss in the same way as cholera patients are monitored for loss of stool fluid was found to be a useful and practical way of measuring haemorrhage of parturient women after childbirth. The method described here is simple and appropriate, which makes it a good alternative to more costly methods in detecting and quantifying PPH.