Effects of postpartum uterine curettage on maternal well-being in severe preeclamptic patients.

Abstract

PURPOSE: We assessed the effect of postpartum uterine curettage on maternal recovery time in severe preeclamptic patients. METHOD: Fifty-six pregnant women with the diagnosis of severe preeclampsia in their third trimester were enrolled in the study. Uterine curettage was performed in the early postpartum period on 31 randomly selected patients and curettage was not performed in the remaining 25 patients. Prepartum mean arterial pressure (MAP) values, quantitative platelet counts, presence of proteinuria tested semiquantatitively, lactic dehydrogenase (LDH), aspartate transferase (AST), alanine transferase (ALT), and uric acid levels were determined. FINDINGS: In the group that underwent curettage, we observed a faster drop in the mean arterial pressures monitored at two-hour intervals, especially after the sixth postpartum hour (p 0.05). RESULTS: In our study we have observed that uterine curettage performed in the postpartum period had favorable effects on blood pressure, platelet count, and urinary output and also helped in faster recovery from severe preeclampsia. We, therefore, consider that postpartum uterine curettage is useful for patients with severe preeclampsia that require faster recovery.

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