Postpartum Sterilization by Nurse-Midwives in Thailand

Abstract

To increase the availability of sterilization outside urban areas the National Family Planning Program of Thailand decided to expand a pilot program to train nurse-midwives with operating room experience to perform postpartum sterilization. A comparison of 541 procedures done by nurse-midwives and 279 performed by physicians show that the 2 provider groups do not differ significantly with respect to the rate of surgical difficulties (2.2% among physicians and 3.1% among nurse-midwives) or the rate of complications 1 year after the operation (3/9% among physicians and 4.4% among nurse-midwives). However there were significant differences with regard to counseling about the operation (p0.05) with nurse-midwives providing more complete information about the surgery than the physicians. The results of this study support the training of nurse-midwives to perform postpartum sterilization. (authors modified)