Publication:

Study of fetal outcome in hypertensive disorders of pregnancy in a tertiary care maternity hospital of Delhi

Background Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy is a multifactorial disorder that seriously endangers the safety of the fetus during pregnancy. This study was conducted to study the perinatal outcome of this grave disorder in pregnancy and thus reducing the perinatal morbidity and mortality by prevention and proper management of this condition.

Methods A “prospective case-control observational study” was conducted in the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Kasturba Hospital, New Delhi.100 pregnant women presenting with hypertension from January 2014 to December 2014 were taken as cases and compared with 100 pregnant women (age and parity matched) in terms of perinatal outcome.

Results As many as 6 cases with hypertensive disorder of pregnancy had intrauterine death of fetus as compared to 2 intrauterine death of fetus in controls. Birth weight >2.5kg was recorded in 68.4% of cases while 25.5% had weight between 1.5kg-2.5kg and 6.1% had weight 2.5kg, 13% between 1.5kg-2.5kg and 2% had <1.5kg.The low birth weight in cases was due to IUGR and/or prematurity. 24.49% of babies of cases with hypertensive disorder of pregnancy had Apgar score <7 at 5 minutes after birth as compared to only 14% of control babies with Apgar <7. 25.53% of neonates born to cases were admitted in NICU whereas only 11% of neonates born to controls were admitted in NICU (p=.014). 4.3% of neonates born to cases ended up in early neonatal death while there was no early neonatal death among controls.

Conclusions Thus low birth weight due to prematurity/IUGR and fetal hypoxia were the main reasons for fetal morbidity in hypertensive disorders of pregnancy.