Maternal Risk Factors & Pregnancy Wastage in a Rural Population of Jammu District

Higher proportion of women experiencing pregnancy wastage in any defined area is considered as a sensitive indicator of maternal health care services. It is a significant public health problem throughout the world especially in the developing countries. Pregnancy wastage mainly includes early pregnancy losses (abortions) and stillbirths. Actual incidence of abortions is not known. It is estimated that 30-55 million abortions take place worldwide annually which translates into an abortion ratio of 260-450 per 1000 live births. In India, it has been computed that about 6 million abortions take place every year, out of which 4 million are induced and 2 million are spontaneous. Still birth rate for developed countries is estimated to be much less i.e., 4.26.8 per 1000 births whereas for developing world, the estimate ranges from 20-32 per 1000 live births (1).Pregnancy outcome is influenced by hereditary, environmental and bio-social factors like maternal age, inter pregnancy interval, parity, socio-economic factors, Abstract To study the association of maternal risk factors with pregnancy wastage, a prospective study was conducted for a period of one year among 305 pregnant rural women registered with fifty Anganwadi centres in field practice area of Department of Community Medicine, GMC Jammu. All the potential participants were interviewed in person using semi-structured, pre-tested proformae and evaluated clinically. All pregnant women were then followed to study the outcome in terms of abortion, live birth or still birth. Various maternal risk factors like anaemia, Hypertension, Ante partum Haemorrhage, Albuminuria, Glucosuria were studied and their association with pregnancy wastage was analysed using chi-square test. Out of 305 pregnancies followed, 43(14.1%) ended in pregnancy loss i.e. 34 abortions and 9 still births. Pregnancy wastage was statistically significantly associated with anaemia, H.T., APH and Glucosuria. Anaemia was found to independently affect adverse pregnancy outcome on multivariate analysis. Pregnancy wastage in our set up is mainly due to preventable and treatable risk factors which should be taken care of to prevent the wastage.