Adverse Maternal Outcomes in Women With Asthma

Abstract

As adverse maternal outcomes for women with asthma were higher in minorities, and as minorities have traditionally had more barriers to healthcare, the study results indicate that more effort needs to be made to educate nurses, consumers, and government officials about the potential adverse maternal outcomes of asthma during pregnancy. Public awareness may assist in overcoming the barriers to healthcare experienced by minorities.

Maternal and neonatal outcomes of pregnancies complicated by asthma in an Australian population

“…These data suggest that increased asthma severity may increase the risk of a preterm delivery. Adverse outcomes in asthmatic women are more prevalent in ethnic minorities, as reported in a study that African‐American women with asthma had a greater rate of preterm delivery than Caucasian American women with asthma; 18 this may be a confounder in the previously mentioned study by the Schatz group where more than half of the participants were African Americans 6 . Overall, African‐American women have a higher rate of preterm delivery than any other ethnic group in the USA 19 .…”

Association of Maternal Chronic Disease and Negative Birth Outcomes in a Non‐Hispanic Black‐White Mississippi Birth Cohort

“…These risks may be magnified if maternal chronic conditions are not well controlled (Cundy, Slee, Gamble, & Neale, 2002; MacMullen, Tymkow, & Shen, 2006; Sibai et al, 2000). Women of low socioeconomic status may therefore be at particular risk if they experience barriers to care, such as lack of health care coverage, inability to purchase maintenance medications, access to transportation, and related issues.…”

Does maternal asthma contribute to racial/ethnic disparities in obstetrical and neonatal complications?

“…In general, compared to data on asthmatic women from the National Inpatient Sample (NIS), we observed higher prevalence for some obstetric complications including gestational diabetes (Asian/Pacific Islanders 11.3 vs 7.2%), preeclampsia (Whites 5.3 vs 1.6%), PROM (Hispanic 8.2 vs 2.9%) and postpartum hemorrhage (Whites 8.7 vs 2.7%) [12]. The increased rates may be due to differences in the study design and population.…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to investigate the joint effects of maternal asthma by maternal race/ethnicity on the odds of obstetric and neonatal complications. One prior study that investigated health disparities in maternal asthma used White women as the comparison group instead of assessing the within group difference between racial/ethnic groups [12]. We also observed that asthma prevalence is found to vary widely across racial/ethnic groups and we decided to explore the impact maternal asthma had on the within-group risk of obstetric and neonatal complications examined.…”

“…In addition, racial/ethnic disparities in obstetric and neonatal outcomes among women with asthma are understudied. One prior study examined the impact of maternal asthma on obstetric and neonatal outcomes by race/ethnicity, but this nation-wide US effort did not consider the underlying differences in outcome prevalence by race among women without asthma [12]. We addressed this gap in knowledge by examining the joint impact of maternal race/ethnicity and asthma on the odds of obstetric and neonatal complications.…”