Foetomaternal Outcome Among Elderly Pregnant Women Attending a Peripheral Teaching Institution of West Bengal, India- A Prospective Observational Study

Abstract

BACKGROUND Advances in assisted reproductive technology, delayed marriage and increase in the rate of divorce followed by re-marriage all lead to an increased number of women giving birth for the first time at the age of 35 years or more resulting in adverse maternal and foetal outcomes. Aims and Objective-To estimate various foetomaternal outcomes and their influencing factors among women aged 35 years or more. involving total 100 elderly primi as study group and another 100 pregnant women below the age of 35 years as comparison group, selected randomly. Data was collected at the time of inclusion, during follow up visit in antenatal clinic and in the labour room, as well as post-natal ward and special neonatal care unit during and after delivery. Interview, clinical examination including anthropometry and record review were used for data collection via a predesigned questionnaire. RESULTSSignificantly higher proportion of maternal and foetal mortality and morbidity was found among the participants belonging to the study group. Antenatal and intranatal complications were all increased in study group. Only, 3% maternal deaths were observed among study group. CONCLUSIONThe fact 'delayed child bearing was associated with poor pregnancy outcome' was reaffirmed even in this setting. These pregnancies need quality antenatal, intranatal, post-natal and perinatal care using sophisticated techniques like amniocentesis, chorionic villus biopsy and early and more frequent ultrasonography etc.

Prediction of low birth weight by quadruple parameters in high-risk pregnancies

“…Antenatal and intranatal complications were increased in their study group along with an increased incidence of LBW babies compared to the comparison group (40.20% vs. 24%). High AFP, low hCG, and high inhibin A were risk factors for low birth weight,[ 17 - 19 ] which is similar to our results. In another study from Thailand in 2020, over 578 women with SGA among 10115 total pregnant women were in agreement up to an extent with our study and found a higher level of AFP (area under the curve [AUC] 0.724) and b-HCG (AUC 0.655) and lower level of uE3 (0.597) was significantly associated to the SGA in the fetal aneuploidy testing results.…”