Main findings
This systematic review demonstrated a wide variation in reported
outcomes and outcome measures in most studies investigating planned mode
of birth. 63 prospective studies including data from 6,397,310 women
were include. 79% of the studies reported a primary outcome. Among the
reported outcomes, maternal outcomes were the most reported ones (47%),
followed by childhood long-term outcomes (20%), neonatal short-term
outcomes (16.4%), maternal long-term outcomes (14.6%) and subsequent
pregnancy outcomes (1.8%) (Table 2). This variation in outcome
reporting could be due to differences in ease of data collection for
long-term outcomes compared to short-term outcomes for maternal health,
whereas for neonatal outcome, immediate outcomes may be more easily
collected than to follow-up with children’s long-term health. Only one
subsequent pregnancy outcome was recorded but this could be due to the
nature of this systematic review that only studies comparing planned CS
versus planned VD were included rather than studies comparing first and
second pregnancy. The variation in outcome reporting and outcome
measures means that individual studies cannot be compared and combined
in a meta-analysis of outcomes of planned mode of birth, thereby
limiting its usefulness to inform clinical practice.