Frequency and severity of prehospital obstetric events encountered by emergency medical services in the United States

Table 4 Proportion of emergency activations for obstetric events treated by EMS that were considered high acuity and missing data on patient acuity

Category	Per EMS Provider^a		Per MEOWS^b
Category	n (row %)	*Missing,* *n (row %)*	n (row %)	*Missing,* *n (row %)*
Overall	30,131 (34)	20,233 (19)	36,761 (35)	3,044 (3)
Early or threatened labor	5,437 (42)	3,124 (20)	5,767 (37)	413 (3)
Malposition, disproportion, or other labor complications	4,873 (39)	2,896 (19)	5,040 (33)	380 (2)
Prolapsed cord	8 (53)	6 (29)	10 (48)	0
Non-cephalic presentation	20 (77)	11 (30)	18 (53)	3 (8)
Spontaneous or induced abortion and complications	1,312 (41)	779 (19)	1,493 (39)	189 (5)
Out-of-hospital birth/delivery	1,532 (54)	655 (19)	1,499 (45)	129 (4)
Preterm delivery	669 (59)	363 (24)	634 (44)	68 (5)
Early, first or unspecified trimester hemorrhage	426 (41)	363 (26)	524 (39)	35 (3)
Eclampsia, preeclampsia, and hypertensive conditions	431 (53)	191 (19)	687 (70)	17 (2)
Intra- and post-partum hemorrhage	281 (55)	114 (18)	263 (44)	27 (4)
Ectopic or molar pregnancy and complications	142 (47)	31 (9)	122 (38)	10 (3)
Maternal cardiac arrest, any etiology	15 (63)	1 (4)	12 (67)	7 (28)

Note: Percentages are per row, not column, and do not total to 100%
Abbreviations: EMS, emergency medical services; MEOWS, modified early obstetric warning system
^aA total of 87,538 (81%) activations had an EMS provider documented patient acuity. Displayed is the percent of each category documented as having an initial (eSituation.13) or final (eDisposition.19) patient acuity of “critical”, “emergent”, or “dead without resuscitation efforts.” “Not applicable/not recorded” was considered missing and not included in the denominator. Frequency and percentage of missing acuity for each category is reported separately
^bThe MEOWS scoring was calculated for activations where at data were available for least 4 of the 6 components (n=104,727, 97% included). Displayed is the percent of each category considered as high acuity (≥1 red or ≥2 yellow alert conditions). Frequency and percentage of missing for each category is reported separately

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