Destructive operations in modern obstetrics.

This is a retrospective study carried out over a period of 7 years at a tertiary care hospital to evaluate the indications, types and complications of destructive operations. During this period, 51 destructive operations were performed on women with obstructed labor and intrauterine fetal death. The most common operation performed was craniotomy (68.62%) followed by decapitation (19.60%), evisceration (7.84%) and cleidotomy (3.92%). The most common indication was cephalopelvic disproportion (31.25%). Out of 53 babies delivered (one triplet delivery), two were grossly malformed and 49.05% babies had birth weight between 3.0 kg and 4.0 kg and 9.43% were macrosomic. A total of 45.09% women had complications like atonic PPH, vaginal and perineal tears, puerperal sepsis and urinary tract infection. However, there was no maternal death. It is felt that for the women who belong to poor socio-economic status and have poor compliance and who present late in labor with features of obstruction, intrauterine sepsis and fetal death, destructive operation is still a good option.