A Cross-sectional Comparative Study to Observe the Obstetric Complication Associated with Extreme (<18 - >35) Maternal Age

Aim: To assess the frequency and association of obstetric complications in extreme of maternal ages.

Methods: A cross-sectional comparative study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital of district Nawabshah, Sindh and Suleman Roshan Medical College during the period April 2019- May 2020. The data regarding adverse obstetric outcomes of all teenage (<18 years) compared with the reference group of (19-22 years) and women of (>35 years) were compared with reference (31-34 years of age) delivering at the facility. The frequencies, percentages were derived as part of descriptive statistics, chi-square was used for parametric testing with 0.05 level of significance and odds ratio were applied to compare the risk of extreme age groups with their respective reference groups.

Results: A total of 104 participants were recruited in this study among 16.3% accounted for teenage (<18 years) and 34.6% accounted for advanced maternal age (> 35 years). Multivariate association between maternal age groups and the adverse obstetric variables were taken into account. Elevated rates for all adverse obstetric outcomes were observed between the variables among extreme-age mothers compared to reference group. The differences were statistically significant with p-value of 0.001 respectively. The chi-square test was found to be insignificant for other factors such as socio demographics, obstetric history and mode of delivery. Odds ratio was calculated to measure the risk associated with extreme age. Those women who were <18 years of age attributed 3.2 odds of developing fetal complications and 3.9 odds of developing maternal complication whereas women >35 years of age attributed 3.7 odds of developing fetal and odds 10.7 developing maternal complications.

Conclusion: Women in extreme age group were at a higher risk for developing adverse fetal and maternal obstetric complications as compared to their reference group.