To see if there are any racial or ethnic disparities in postoperative problems following nonobstetric surgery during pregnancy in the United States was the study’s goal. From 2005 to 2012, researchers did a secondary study of the prospective ACS NSQIP (American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement) program. They looked at pregnant women aged 18 to 50 who had no prior surgery in the previous 30 days and underwent nonobstetric surgery. Non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic whites were the race and ethnicity categories. The primary outcome was a 30-day composite of severe postoperative complications, which included cardiovascular, pulmonary, and infectious problems, reoperation, unexpected readmission, blood transfusion, and death. To evaluate the relative risk of complications, they utilized modified Poisson regression. Among the 3,093 pregnant women, 18% were non-Hispanic Black, 20% were Hispanic, and 62% were non-Hispanic White. Appendectomy and cholecystectomy were the most frequent procedures. Black women were more likely than White or Hispanic colleagues to be given American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) physical status class III or higher. When compared to their White counterparts, non-Hispanic Black pregnant women had a greater risk of 30-day severe postoperative problems. This difference remained after restricting the study to apparently healthy women, those who had an appendectomy, and those who had appendectomy plus cholecystectomy by laparoscopy. Pregnant Hispanic women were not at a higher risk of problems than non-Hispanic pregnant White women.
When compared to their White counterparts, pregnant non-Hispanic Black women were at a greater risk of severe postoperative complications after nonobstetric surgery.
