THE ELDERLY PRIMIGRAVIDA: ASSESSMENT OF MAGNITUDE AND PREGNANCY OUTCOMES AT SAINT PAUL’S HOSPITAL MILLENNIUM MEDICAL COLLEGE, ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA. A FIVE YEARS REVIEW, SEPT 2005 - AUGUST 2009 EC.

Abstract

Summary Introduction: Maternal and child health is affected by many variables and maternal age is the most important of them. Woman having their first pregnancy at the age of 35 or above are considered elderly primigravida and these pregnancies are considered high risk, traditionally. The cohort of this group of mothers is increasing for various reasons; Pursuit of career or financial goals, better contraception, longer life expectancy, higher education etc., being mentioned as common reasons. Several studies conducted in different parts of the world indicated that elderly primigravida pregnancies are at higher risk of bad outcomes both maternal and perinatal wise compared to younger counterparts. Though, previously, this problem was of developed countries, with the current globalization and sociocultural advances of societies, it has become a global fact that women are delaying childbearing. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the magnitude and pregnancy outcomes of elderly primigravida pregnancies at Saint Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College over the past five years 2005 (Sept.) to 2009 (august) EC. Methods: A facility based Descriptive cross sectional study design was employed to analyze 108 cases of elderly primigravida from a total of 38,501 deliveries in the hospital in the 5 years period. The medical records of this patients were retrieved from record room and required data extracted using a well-designed data abstraction tool and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Descriptive analysis of the data; percentages, means, median and mode were calculated. Frequency tables, graphs and pie charts are drawn to present the results. Results: There were a total of 38,501deliveries in the hospital in the past five years; 2005 (Sept.) to 2009 (august) EC. The magnitude of elderly primigravida in this study was 0.28% and both maternal and perinatal outcomes of these pregnancies were found to be higher than young primigravida of reference literatures and this was consistent with findings from those studies. Conclusion: The Magnitude of elderly primigravida in our center is low. Adverse maternal and perinatal outcomes are also found to be high. Key words: Elderly primigravida, Maternal Outcomes, Perinatal Outcomes.