Population of Parturient Women in the Czech Republicat the End of MilleniumII. Pregnancy Complications

Overview

Objective:
To evaluate incidence of selected pregnancy complications and their importance towardsclinical status of fetus and newborn.Design: Retrospective comparative epidemiological study.Setting: Institute for the Care of Mother and Child, Praha4-Podolí; Office of Health Informationand Statistics, Praha.Methods: Comparison of incidence of selected pregnancy complications according to the WHOrecommendations and related perinatal mortality using the data from innovated „Report onmother“ of the Office of Health Information and Statistics database in 2000.Results: Pregnancy complications were observed among 17.6% of all pregnant women in 2000 andparticipated on 47.1% of total perinatal mortality, which was 4.4‰. Incidence of pregnancy complicationsvaried from 0.2% of placenta praevia up to 5.6% of threatening preterm labor. Theirseverity, according to complication-specific perinatal mortality, varied from 2.6‰ for gestationalhypertension up to 103.5‰ for premature separation of placenta. Every sixth mother had morethan one complication; the most frequent combination was threatening preterm labor with anothercomplication. The incidence of pregnancy complications increases with age of mother and isalso associated with lower gestational age of newborn. Complications related to placental dysfunctiontend to lead to stillbirths while complications related to preterm labor result more inearly neonatal mortality.Conclusions: We identified the contribution of particular pregnancy complication to perinatalmortality which varies substantially according to its incidence in population and the negativeeffect on fetus at particular gestational age.

Key words:
pregnancy complications, incidence, severity, age of mother, gestational age, perinatalmortality