Determining the perinatal outcome among women with high risk pregnancies
Abstract
Background: Pregnancy is a physiological process and should ideally yield no morbidity and mortality; however, in some instances, pregnancy becomes a high-risk. A high-risk pregnancy carries significant danger to the fetus and mother before, during and after delivery. The objective of the study was to determine the perinatal outcome among women with high-risk pregnancies.
Methodology: This cross-sectional study was conducted from June to December 2015, including 287 women with high-risk pregnancies scheduled to undergo delivery at Liaquat University Hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. Data pertaining to sociodemographic details, gestational, obstetric history, Apgar score and the perinatal outcome was recorded using a pre-structured questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS version 16.0..
Results: The mean age of the enrolled participants was 29.12 ± 5.46 years. The perinatal outcomes included stillbirths (8%), early neonatal deaths (4.2%), low birth weight (22.6%) and poor Apgar score i.e., < 7 at 1 minute (10.5%) and 5 minutes (3.8%). Stratification revealed a significant risk of poor perinatal outcome (low birth weight) among women aged above 30 years (p-value = 0.002).
Conclusion: It is concluded from the study results that high-risk pregnancies yield poor perinatal outcomes, including stillbirths, low birth weight, early neonatal death and poor Apgar scores.
Downloads
References
2. Afzal A, Nasreen K. Biophysical score; high risk pregnancy. Professional Med J. 2006;13(3): 362-369.
3. Sikandar R, Memon A. Maternal and perinatal outcome following emergency caesarean section. Med Channel. 2005; 11: 68-70.
4. Ara J, Musarrat J, Sultana N. Perinatal outcome in pregnancy induced hypertensive mothers. Pak Armed Forces Med J. 2004; 54: 76-78.
5. Shehla S, Shahnaz NB, Baloch SN. Perinatal mortality rate in relation to gender. J Coll Phys Surg Pak. 2004; 14: 545-548.
Copyright (c) 2021 The Author

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.