Risk factors for prolonged pregnancy beyond 40 weeks

Abstract

Prolonged and postterm pregnancy at the current stage is one of the urgent problems in the field of obstetrics and gynecology. It is due to both the high frequency of pathological processes during childbirth and in the context of pathological changes occurring with the fetus, which leads to an increase in perinatal mortality. Perinatal mortality rates, depending on literary sources, reach 19%, and neonatal morbidity can be up to 28%. All these complications are associated with poor resistance of the fetus to hypoxia due to increased maturity of brain structures and reduced oxygen supply due to dystrophic and involutional changes in the placenta. Therefore, studying the risk factors for prolonged pregnancy after 40 weeks becomes especially important.Therefore, postterm pregnancy should be considered as a pathological condition arising under the influence of various factors.Aim. To carry out a retrospective analysis of the records of childbirth with prolonged pregnancy for more than 40 weeks and to evaluate the risk factors for the occurrence of this pathology.Material and methods. In order to study the immediate and long-term consequences of the development of the prolongation of pregnancy for more than 40 weeks, we conducted a retrospective study of 100 pregnancy and childbirth cases for 2021-2022 at the Chernivtsi Regional Perinatal Center The standard method of mathematical analysis using Student's criteria, the standard and specialized computer program Libre Office Calc 7.0 was used for statistical processing of the obtained data.Results. In order to identify the risk factors of prolonged pregnancy, a comparative analysis of somatic, obstetrical and gynecological anamnesis, features of pregnancy in 100 women with prolonged and postterm pregnancies was carried out. As can be seen from the data presented in Table 1, no significant difference between the number of young first-borns in the groups was found. The share of young first-borns (up to 20 years old) is somewhat higher in prolonged pregnancies (28% versus 22% in late pregnancies). It is characteristic that there were 1.1 times more patients over 30 years of age in the postterm pregnancy group than in the prolonged pregnancy group (78% and 72%, respectively).Conclusions. The analysis of the somatic and obstetric and gynecological history, as well as the characteristics of the course of the current pregnancy, allows to determine the risk factors that indicate the possibility of the development of a delayed pregnancy.