Characterization of Drug Addiction’s Pregnant Women in the Czech Republic

Overview

Objective:
The aim of the study was to characterise the population of drug abused pregnant women in Czech republic and chart their socioeconomic situation.Design: Prospective study.Setting: The Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of the General Teaching Hospital and the 1st Medical Faculty of Charles University in PragueMethods: This prospective study coursed since January 1998 till the end of the year 2000. This study covered a group of pregnant women addict on illegal drugs (heroin, pervitin). The group was set in close cooperation with Prague’s contact anti-drugs centers (DROP-IN, K-centrum, Sanopin), Dependence therapy department and Department for genetics Teaching hospital Prague and of course in cooperation with the district gynaecologists. During 3 years we succeeded in gathering 41 addict women for prenatal care. Twenty of them were heroin and 18 pervitin addict. The control groups were selected by method of accidental choice. We compared each group with its control and both groups of addicted mutually. We focused mainly on characteristics which could have a negative impact on the course of pregnancy, labour and lying-in period and the health condition of the foetus and the neonate (age, status, employment, parity, length of drug ubusus, mode of application, attempt of therapy or abstinence, STD, hepatitis B and C, quality of prenatal care).Results: We proved, that drug abused pregnant women are statistically significantly younger than pregnant women from control groups (by equal parity), mostly single and unemployed. The majority of them prefer intravenous way of drug application. The heroin - addict choose this type of application statistically significantly more often (94,4 %) and also more often they report efforts at abstinence or therapy. A big part of drug abused pregnant women has insufficient prenatal care. 33 % of heroin-addict and 25 % of pervitin-addict never attended the obstetrician during their pregnancy. We revealed a significantly higher incidence of HBsAg a mainly anti HCV and active hepatitis C among women from both „drugs“ groups compared to their controls. We did not encounter any HIV positive case among the Czech addict pregnant.Conclusion: The population of drugs-addict pregnant women may be characterised as a high risk group from the view of prenatal care. The pregnancy is not a sufficient impulse for the majority of drugs-addict women to change their life stereotypes.

Key words:
pregnancy, pervitin, heroin, sexually transmitted diseases, hepatitis B, hepatitis C