Publication:

Advanced maternal age and obstetric outcome

Background The objective of this study was to compare the adverse obstetric and perinatal outcome of pregnancies in women with advanced maternal age > 35 years with that of younger women in age group 20-34 years.

Methods A retrospective comparative study was carried out in department of obstetrics and gynecology at Adesh Medical College over the period of one year from June 2017 to June 2018. The obstetric and perinatal outcome of 100 women with advanced maternal age (study group) was compared with those of 100 younger women aged 20-34 years (control group).

Results Among antenatal complications, women of advanced maternal age had increased incidence of hypertensive disorder of pregnancy (26.6% versus 4.4%; p = 0.00009) and breech presentation (8.8% versus 1.1%; p = 0.04).  The rate of caesarean delivery was significantly higher in advanced maternal age (28.8% versus 17.7%; p = 0.05). In perinatal outcome, older women had significantly higher incidence of perinatal death (7.7% versus 0%; p = 0.01).

Conclusions Thus, from this study, it can be concluded that advanced age women had higher incidence of hypertensive disorder of pregnancies and mal presentation, were more likely to deliver by caesarean section and had increased incidence of perinatal death.