Elective manual exploration of the uterus after delivery: a study and review.

One hundred patients who had elective manual exploration of the uterus at the time of delivery were compared with a control group of 100 patients with regard to febrile morbidity and blood loss at delivery. Febrile morbidity was quantitated with the Fever Index, and postpartum blood loss was quantitated by subtracting the two-day postpartum hemoglobin from the admission hemoglobin. The patient population encompassed only normal spontaneous vaginal deliveries without complications. The manually explored group had less febrile morbidity and less blood loss; however, this was not statistically significant. Although this study cannot conclude that routine elective manual exploration of the uterus should be done after expulsion of the placenta, it does demonstrate the safety of the procedure.