A rapid systematic review of postpartum bladder care guidelines and recommendations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

New pathways for the management of postpartum voiding dysfunction and postpartum urinary retention should be considered to shorten hospital stays and promote early discharge during the COVID-19 pandemic. This rapid systematic review aimed to identify relevant national and international guidelines, and summarise available recommendations on postpartum bladder care that are relevant to women's care and management at the time of the pandemic. We searched Medline, Embase and Cochrane from inception till September 2021. Hand-searching of national and international specialist societies' websites was performed. We identified one international technical consultation, one international society's report of recommendations and two national guidelines. Guidelines stated that postnatal women should not be left more than 6 hours without voiding and assessed for postpartum urinary retention. As the cut-off of 150 ml for the diagnosis of significant postvoid residual volume is commonly used with no reported adverse outcomes, it could be beneficial to adopt this instead of 100 ml as further unnecessary interventions can be avoided. Such changes can reduce the number of women staying in the hospital. Clean intermittent self-catheterisation for the management of postpartum urinary retention could be considered as an option during the COVID-19 pandemic aiming to shorten hospital stays and avoid further attendances. Optimised bladder care has become more relevant during the coronavirus pandemic by striving towards self-care, community-based and remote care. We propose consideration of intermittent self-catheterisation in cases of postpartum urinary retention enabling self-care and avoidance of hospital visits.