Retrospective Analysis of Out-of-Hospital Births in Ankara Emergency Medical Services
Abstract
Background: In Emergency Medical Services (EMS), out-of-hospital (OOH) births are rare but not exceptional. Our study aims to evaluate the data of patients who gave birth in OOH in Ankara province and to analyze the prehospital obstetric organization.
Methods: We evaluated the records (such as age, nationality, district, type of hospital to which they were transported, and transportation time) in the ASOS database of 403 pregnancies who gave birth outside the hospital in Ankara between 2021 and 2023 and were transported to a hospital by ambulance.
Results: Between 2021 and 2023, Ankara EMS intervened in a total of 403 out-of-hospital (OOH) birth cases. While 214 (53.1%) of the patients were citizens of the Republic of Türkiye, 189 (46.9%) were foreign nationals. Foreign nationals who gave birth at OOH were mostly of Middle Eastern and Asian origin. The mean age of the mothers in our study was 26.9 ± 5.7 years. A significant difference was found in the incidence of OOH births in peripheral regions between years. While there were 13 (14.6%) cases in 2021, there were 62 (36.3%) cases in 2022 and 52 (36.4%) cases in 2023.
Conclusions: With a well-designed EMS obstetric care organization, patients can be provided with more accessible and better service. The increase in the number of foreign nationals in the demographic structure may increase the number of OOH births.
Keywords
Kaynakça
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