Preterm Delivery and Low Birth Weight in Relation with Term Pregnancy-Comparative Study

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Mahaseth Binod Kamar
Malla Tark

Abstract

Background: Improvements in neonatal care has improved survival rate of preterm neonate but this consumes most of available resources. Most clinicians try to prevent preterm delivery, but with limited success. Present study was carried out with the intent to determine the risk factors for preterm. delivery in a tertiary care level hospital setup.
Methods: Preterm delivery followed by term pregnancy was used as control group from lists of all term babies
delivered within the study period, using preterm:term ratios of 1:1.
Results: A total of 834 ( 417 cases and 417 controls) childmother pairs were included in the study. The mean age for preterm. mothers was 22.6±4.2 years and for term delivery mothers, it was 23 .2±4.1 years. 37.95% of the preterm. group and 46.3% of the
term delivered group mothers belonged to Bhrahaman/Chhetri ethnicity. Low birth weight as more common (64.7%) in preterm delivery group. Vaginal route was found to be the preferable route of delivery in both groups in the present study.
Conclusion: The risk of preterm birth increased 2.5 fold with mal-presentation of baby and 1.6 times with Janjati ethnicity group. There was eight fold increased risk of babies born with low birth weight and 4.2 times increased risk of still birth in the preterm delivery group. The quality of antenatal care should be improved to decrease preterm delivery among Dalit and Janjati, young
primi (age <20 yrs), and malpresentation of the foetus should be screened carefully and intervention to be done accordingly.

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Research Articles