THURSDAY, May 1 (HealthDay News) -- Fifty percent of the pregnant women included in a study of a large health maintenance organization had mild-to-severe pregnancy complications ranging from anemia to pelvic and perineal trauma, many of which did not require hospitalization, researchers report in the May issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
F. Carol Bruce, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and colleagues analyzed data from 24,481 pregnancies in patients from Kaiser Permanente Northwest to determine the prevalence of maternal morbidities based on pregnancy outcome.
The researchers found that the prevalence and type of morbidity varied based on pregnancy outcome. Fifty percent of the women had at least one complication, with anemia, urinary tract infections, mental health conditions, hypertensive disorders, and pelvic and perineal trauma being the most common (each accounting for less than 10 percent).
"A range of mild-to-severe pregnancy complications were identified using linked inpatient and outpatient databases," Bruce and colleagues conclude. "The most common complications we found usually do not require hospitalization so would be missed in studies that use only hospitalization data."
Abstract
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