Personal and obstetric features of pregnant women according to birth interval

Abstract

Introduction: The procreative reality of pregnant women leads to the updating of all their personal and obstetric characteristics that will facilitate their care in the process of pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum. Objective: To determine the personal and obstetric features of pregnant women, according to the birth interval. Methods: An observational, retrospective, cross-sectional study was carried out with 842 pregnant women treated in three hospitals in Lima, Peru, from July 2011 to April 2014. For the secondary analysis, questionnaires on personal and obstetric characteristics such as extreme age were used. The short birth interval was classified at < 2 years; normal between 2-5 years, and long if it is ≥ 6 years. Distributions of the Chi-square and Kruskal-Wallis tests were applied, p < 0.05. Results: 85.0% were found in the range between 20-35 years of age. According to personal characteristics, the longer the birth interval, the lower the proportion of young pregnant women. No variations were found according to maternal occupation. The birth interval was related to minor family abuse. According to personal and obstetric characteristics, as the birth interval increased, contraception also increased with, as well as extreme ages (>35 years) and median newborn weight. Conclusions: It was evidenced that the longer the birth interval, the smaller the group of young pregnant women. The short birth interval was related to minor family abuse, and in the obstetric characteristics, as the birth interval increased, contraception, the extreme ages and the median weight of the newborn also increased.