identifying demographic characteristics of pregnancy and conditions of delivery of mothers who gave birth to mentally retarded child

this is a discriptive study with the main goal to identify personal, pregnancy and delivery characteristics of mothers given birth to mentally retarded child. this study has been conducted in the rehabilitation center in tehran in 1994. a total of 150 women took part in this research, and the tool of was a check list which was completed by researcher through interview. the findings were illustrated in 34 tables and descriptive statistical were used to demonstrate the results. considering demographic charactristics of mothers, it was revealed that during their pregnancy, 38% of subjects were between 20-30 years of age, 10% of subjects has had history of previous illness, 36.7% of subjects were closly related to their husbands and 33% had the history of handicap among their  relatives. considering the charactristics of pregnancy it was revealed that 12.7% of subjects didn,t receive any perinatal care, 37.3% of them had history of illness during their pregnancy and 11.3% of subjects have used drugs not prescribed by physician while 6% of these drugs were hotmons. considering the condition of delivery, the results revealed that 14% of subjects had pre-term delivery and 6.7% of subjects has had forceps and vacuum delivery. based on the findings, suggestion for further research and implementations of findings in health care practice were made.