The Incidence of Placenta Previa among Women with Subsequent Pregnancy after Previous Cesarean Sections

Background: Placenta previa is one of the leading causes of vaginal bleeding in second and third trimester of pregnancy. The risk of placenta previa is also higher among women with previous cesarean section. The purpose of our study was to determine the frequency of placenta previa among patients undergoing repeat cesarean section. Materials and Methods: This Cross-sectional study was conducted at the Department of Gynecology, Lahore General Hospital, Lahore. The calculated sample size was 240 cases recruited through non probability purposive sampling. All the patients underwent an obstetrical scan for the presence of placenta previa. The women who were detected with placenta previa were further enquired for the numbers of previous cesarean section. The data was collected on specifically designed proforma (attached). All the collected data was entered into SPSS version 10 and analyzed. The qualitative data like presence of placenta previa (yes or no) was presented as frequency and percentage. Results: There were 240 females included in the study with the mean age of 30.41 ± 5.47 years. The mean gestational age was 34.50±2.97 weeks. There were 233 (97.08%) females who did not develop placenta previa while 7 (2.92%) females had placenta previa. There was insignificant difference observed for frequency of placenta previa with age of females, parity and cesarean section (P>0.05). Conclusion: The incidence of placenta previa is found to be low in local population who had multiple cesarean section.