Pregnant women today are more likely to have chronic conditions that could cause life-threatening complications than at any other time in the past decade – particularly poor women and those living in rural communities, a new Michigan Medicine study suggests.
Using a national sample of 8.2 million childbirth deliveries over 10 years, researchers analyzed the prevalence of common chronic conditions—including asthma, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and substance-abuse disorders.
Although frequency of these conditions increased over time among every socio-economic group studied, the largest spikes occurred among women from rural and low income communities and among patients with deliveries funded by Medicaid.
The findings were published in The Green Journal, the official publication of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
“Chronic conditions that increase the risk of adverse health outcomes for moms and their newborns are increasingly prevalent among childbearing women,” says lead author Lindsay Admon, M.D., an obstetrician-gynecologist at Michigan Medicine and clinician-scholar at the University of Michigan’s Institute of Healthcare Policy and Innovation.
“Historically, the leading causes of maternal morbidity and mortality in the U.S. have been related to delivery, such as infection or hemorrhage. For the first time in our country, we are seeing complications from pre-existing conditions causing the most harm.”
Source: Medical Xpress
