Enhanced Recovery After Cesarean Delivery: Improving Patient Outcomes

This review summarizes the updated literature on enhanced recovery after cesarean delivery. It provides evidence-based guidance on the components of the most recent recommendations related to enhanced recovery after cesarean delivery.

The Society for Obstetric Anesthesia and Perinatology, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Enhanced Recovery after Surgery Society provide updated recommendations related to enhanced recovery after cesarean delivery. Additional studies and systematic reviews have been published and have found implementation of enhanced recovery pathways are associated with reduction in hospital length of stay, time to first mobilization, time to urinary catheter removal, postoperative pain scores, opioid consumption, and costs. When pathways were initially developed, there were not many studies on obstetric patients, but the literature evaluating many of the components has grown.

Implementation of enhanced recovery pathways are associated with improved maternal outcomes. Future studies should incorporate patient-reported outcome measures.