Abstract:
Background: Adverse pregnancy outcomes lead to serious health consequences to the mother
and/or the baby. These Adverse birth outcomes; prematurity, low birth weight and still birth
represent significant problems in both developing and developed countries. Adverse pregnancy
outcomes are still major public health problems in developing countries including Ethiopia where
most pregnancies are unplanned, complications are many and outcomes are generally Unfavorable
for both mother and infant.
Objective: To identify determinants of adverse pregnancy outcomes among deliveries takes place
in Jimma University specialized hospital from January1 – December 31 / 2015.
Methods: The study was a facility based unmatched case-control study design conducted by
reviewing mothers and newborn cards and registration log book who delivered in Jimma
university specialized hospital from January 1 /2015 to December 31/2015, southwest Ethiopia.
The study was done on randomly selected 86 cases and 258 controls using structured data
collection checklist. Data analysis was done by SPSS version 20 and multiple logistic regression
statistical methods were used to identify the predictors.
Result: In this study 344 mothers and newborns cards were included yielding 100 % response rate.
From this 86 mothers and newborn cards were selected for case group and 258 mothers and
newborn cards were selected for control group. Out of 344 mothers in both case and control
groups, most of them were between the age group of 20-34 years, which is 80.2 % and 82.9 % for
case group and control group, respectively. Stillbirth comprises majority of adverse birth outcomes
contributing 62.7 % of cases while low birth weight (48.8 %) and Preterm birth (24.4 %) take
second and third respectively. Mothers who are referred for delivery service from other area are
more than five times to have adverse pregnancy outcomes than mothers who are not referred,
AOR=5.49 95% CI [2.80-10.76]. And mothers who had illness during current pregnancy are
seven times to be case than controls, AOR=7.22, 95% CI = 1.65-31.58]. Mothers who attend ANC
were less likely to have adverse pregnancy outcome, than mothers who didn’t attended ANC
follow up, AOR = 0.17 95% CI [0.06-0.49]. Pregnant mothers who are anemic or had hemoglobin
level of less than 11 gram/dl are more than seven times to have adverse pregnancy outcomes than
non-anemic pregnant mothers, AOR=7.29 95% CI=[2.85-18.67]. Additionally, women who had
obstetric emergencies during current pregnancy, complications during current delivery, and
multiple pregnancy are more than 18 times AOR =18.40[6.12-55.37], 2 times AOR=2.65[1.38-
5.11] and 7 times AOR=7.59[1.49-38.65] to have adverse pregnancy outcomes than their
counterparts respectively.
Conclusion: According to the findings of this study; referral, illness during current pregnancy,
having ANC attendance, anemia during current pregnancy, complication during delivery, multiple
pregnancy and having obstetric emergencies are statistically significant predictors of adverse
pregnancy outcomes.
Recommendation: providing quality FANC and quality care for laboring mother and facilitation
of early referral in case of complications is recommended.