The impact of parity on obstetric and neonatal outcome

Abstract EN

Objectives : This study was carried out to evaluate the obstetric and perinatal outcome of grandmultiparous women, arid to compare it to that of nongrandmultiparous women.

Methods : Between January 1993 and June 1994, there were 10223 deliveries of twenty eight weeks and more at Prince Rashed Ben Al-Hassan Hospital, of which 2201 were to grandmultiparous women.

The pregnancy out-come of both grandmultiparous and nongrandmultiparous women were compared and analyzed.

Results : The comparison of grandmultiparous women with the nongrandmultiparous, revealed no significant differences in the incidence of instrumental deliveries, ante-and post partum hemorrhage, malpresentations, diabetes, hypertension, fetal distress, neonatal deaths and stillbirths.

Cesarean section rate, congenital malformations, multiple pregnancies and anemia were more common in grandmultiparous women than in the other group.

Prolonged labor, preeclampsia and eclampsia, low birth weight babies andpremanture babies were more common in nongrandmultiparous women with significant statistical differences.

Conclusions : Grandmultipara is not a major risk factor and it does not carry an increased risk of obstetric and perinatal mortality and morbidity.