ArticleFrontiers in surgery2026
Association of labor epidural analgesia with early postpartum pelvic floor function in primiparous women undergoing vaginal delivery: a retrospective cohort study.
Article in Frontiers in surgery, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: The association between labor epidural analgesia (LEA) and postpartum pelvic floor function remains uncertain. We evaluated whether LEA was associated with pelvic floor outcomes in primiparous women undergoing vaginal delivery. Methods: This single-center retrospective cohort study included 200 primiparous women with singleton, cephalic vaginal deliveries. Participants were classified according to LEA exposure. Baseline and peripartum characteristics were compared in the overall cohort. Early postpartum pelvic floor outcomes at 6-8 weeks were analyzed in 191 women, and multivariable regression was performed in 175 complete cases. Outcomes included type I and type II pelvic floor surface electromyography, bladder neck mobility, posterior bladder angle during Valsalva, levator hiatus area during Valsalva, urinary incontinence, and pelvic organ prolapse. The multivariable models additionally adjusted for second-stage labor duration and oxytocin use, which were considered potential labor-process variables in the interpretation of the adjusted estimates. Results: No statistically significant differences were identified in the measured baseline characteristics between the LEA and non-LEA groups. Compared with non-LEA, LEA was associated with longer first-, second-, and third-stage labor, longer total labor duration, and more frequent oxytocin use. No significant detectable between-group differences were observed in any pelvic floor parameter, urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, prolapse stage, or levator avulsion. After adjustment for maternal age, pre-pregnancy body mass index, gestational age, neonatal birth weight, second-stage labor duration, and oxytocin use, LEA was not significantly associated with any continuous pelvic floor outcome, urinary incontinence (adjusted odds ratio, 1.305; 95% confidence interval, 0.629-2.710), or pelvic organ prolapse (1.771; 0.717-4.373). Conclusions: LEA was associated with altered labor characteristics, whereas no statistically detectable association with worse pelvic floor outcomes at 6-8 weeks postpartum was observed after adjustment for the measured covariates. Given the observational design, potential residual confounding, and limited precision for infrequent outcomes, modest associations cannot be excluded.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.