Abstract: Background: Delayed childbearing is believed to be associated with an increased rate of adverse pregnancy outcomes, when compared with early childbearing.
Objective: This study aimed to determine the incidence of advanced maternal age pregnancies and to evaluate their pregnancy outcomes at a tertiary care hospital.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted over a one-year period from 1st June 2022 to 31st May 2023. The study population were women ≥ 35 years, with singleton pregnancy, who were delivered ≥ 28 weeks of gestation. An equal number of women 20-34 years were used as control. Information was extracted from the hospital records. Data were analyzed with SPSS for Windows version 23. Statistical analysis was performed using the Chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test as appropriate. The magnitude of an association was measured using Odds Ratio at 95% confidence interval where appropriate and the level of significance was set at P value of < 0.05.
Results: There were 1687 deliveries during the study period out of which 423 were advanced maternal age pregnancies, giving an incidence of 25.1%. There was a significant association between multiparity (Para ≥ 1) (OR 1.744; P=0.0001), history of previous caesarean delivery (OR 1.594; P=0.037) and decreased episiotomy rate (OR 2.444; P=0.020) with advanced maternal age pregnancy. Significant findings of preterm birth, mode of delivery, type of labour, cephalopelvic disproportion, preterm prelabour rupture of membranes, placenta previa, pregnancy-induced hypertension and low birth weight, were no longer significant following multivariate logistics regression analysis.
Conclusion: Advanced maternal age pregnancy was common in our setting, it was significantly associated with multiparity, history of previous caesarean delivery and less likelihood to receive episiotomy. There was no significant association with preterm delivery, low birth weight babies, birth asphyxia and stillbirth rates.
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