Mortality Risks Up for Women With Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes

WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Women who experience any of five major adverse pregnancy outcomes have increased mortality risks, which remain elevated during long-term follow-up, according to a study published online April 15 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Casey Crump, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, and colleagues examined long-term mortality risks associated with five major adverse pregnancy outcomes in a national cohort study in Sweden. The study included 2,195,667 women with a singleton delivery during 1973 to 2015 with information on pregnancy duration and infant birth weight.

The researchers found that 4 percent of the women died during 56 million person-years of follow-up. Independent associations were seen for all five adverse pregnancy outcomes with increased mortality. Adjusted hazard ratios for all-cause mortality associated with specific adverse pregnancy outcomes were 1.52, 1.41, 1.30, 1.27, and 1.13 for gestational diabetes, preterm delivery, small for gestational age, other hypertensive disorders, and preeclampsia, respectively, across the entire follow-up. After adjustment for shared familial factors in cosibling analyses, these effect sizes were only partially reduced (0 to 45 percent). Further increases in risk were seen for women who experienced multiple adverse pregnancy outcomes.

"Women with adverse pregnancy outcomes need early preventive actions and long-term follow-up for timely detection and treatment of chronic disorders associated with early mortality," the authors write.

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