Maternal age at first birth and obstetric outcome

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of age on women going through their first pregnancy and delivery at extremes of reproductive life. All obstetric records of delivered mothers at the UBTH between January 1995 and December 1999 were extracted for the study. There were 2,658 primiparous birth (27.3%) out of a total of 9,735 deliveries. Teenage mothers were 156 (5.87%), while the elderly primigravidas were 117 (4.4%) and the ideal age primigravidas (Control) were 2,385 (89.73%)The average maternal age at first birth was 27.05±3.04 years. Teenagers registered for their first antenatal visit later than the elderly mothers (23 weeks vs. 18 weeks; P The caesarean section rate for the elderly and the teenage primigravidas was 52.6% and 50.0% respectively compared with 29.2% for the young (idea) mothers. The elective caesarean section rate was significantly higher for the elderly primigravida 21.05%, compared to 0.0% and 1.35% for the teenage and ideal primigravidas respectively. The incidence of low birth weight infants was significantly higher amongst the elderly primigravidas (p =0.000). The number of women having their first birth at the extremes of age is small in our community today. The caesarean section rate is high both for the teenagers and the elderly primigravidas, however their obstetric outcome is good if utilization of antenatal care is adequate and labour properly conducted. KEY WORDS: Primigravida, Age, First Birth, Pregnancy Outcome [Nig J Clinical Practice Vol.5(1) 2002: 20-24]