AM25-SN-06-L - Optimization of Postpartum Hemorrhage Management in the Academic and Community Setting

Sunday, October 26, 2025

8:15 AM - 9:15 AM PT

Room: SDCC 31

Program Chair(s)

KO

Kerry OBrien, MD

Medical Director Blood Bank
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Topsfield, Massachusetts

Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose

Speaker(s)

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Scott Shainker, DO, MS

Director, New England Center for Placental Disorders / Associate Professor Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Biology
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center / Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts

Disclosure(s): No relevant disclosure to display
Tara Singh, MD, MHCDS (she/her/hers)

Chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Cambridge Health Alliance
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose

Postpartum hemorrhage remains the leading, preventable cause of maternal morbidity and mortality worldwide. Representing over 27% of all maternal deaths, postpartum hemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal death worldwide. While identifiable risk factors for obstetric hemorrhage are well known, including multiple gestation, macrosomia, polyhydramnios, and uterine scarring, hemorrhage often occurs in the low risk patient. While tools exist to help identify patients at risk of postpartum hemorrhage, these events can happen in any location where births occur. Management of postpartum hemorrhage with blood products, medications, and surgical techniques has to be tailored and optimized for each delivery setting from the academic medical center to a community/rural hospital. Additionally transfers of hemorrhaging patients between echelons of care should occur in a way to ensure the receiving location is notified of the transfusions and medications given prior and during the transport. A maternal fetal-medicine specialist from an academic medical center and an obstetrician from a community hospital will discuss how they approach the patient with postpartum hemorrhage.

Learning Objectives:

Discuss the process of selecting the products and laboratory test values included within your facility's obstetric massive transfusion protocol.
Describe the methods for identifying risk factors for postpartum hemorrhage in the laboring patient in the academic setting and in the community.
Detail the blood product support and protocol for managing a hemorrhaging obstetric patient in the academic institution and how this is adapted for the community hospital.
Discuss how to optimize transfers of care of the hemorrhaging patient to ensure information on transfusions and medications are conveyed to the accepting institution