Rates of recurrent retinal detachment following vaginal versus cesarean deliveries: A retrospective analysis and review of the literature.

to evaluate the risk for a retinal re-detachment in women following vaginal delivery versus cesarean delivery. Retrospective cohort analysis of patients diagnosed with a retinal detachment that had later delivered in one tertiary medical center. Recurrence rates of retinal detachment were obtained from medical charts. A total of 967 women with retinal detachments were evaluated and 66 patients met the inclusion criteria. Mean age at the time of retinal detachment was 22.64±5.81 SD years and 21.75±5.47 SD years in the vaginal delivery group and the cesarean-section group, respectively. None of the patients had a history of eye surgery or traumatic eye injury prior to the event of retinal detachment. In all patients, the detached retina was surgically reattached. Retinal detachment was not recorded in the fellow eye during follow-up time. We report four cases of re-detachment following birth in four women. In our study, there was a 5% rate (n=2) of retinal detachment after vaginal delivery as compared to a 7.5% (n=2) re-detachment rate for patients following cesarean delivery (p=0.654). The risk for a re-detachment of the retina in women is not increased following a vaginal delivery as compared to cesarean delivery. Therefore, in our opinion, there is no ophthalmic benefit in a cesarean section for a woman with prior retinal detachment.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Conflict of Interest: All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.