AN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF CLINICAL CONDITIONS ON CHILD BIRTH AND ITS MANAGEMENT

Pregnancy, also known as gestation, is the time during which one or more offspring develops inside a woman. It is evident that a considerable proportion of these are affected by certain clinical conditions which may complicate pregnancy leading to maternal and foetal morbidity and mortality. A prospective observational study was conducted on 130 pregnant women of reproductive age (18-35 years) with clinical conditions (Gestational Diabetes Mellitus, Gestational Hypertension, Abnormal Amniotic Fluid (Oligohydramnios and Polyhydramnios, Epilepsy) for a period of 6 months. The required data is collected from the patient’s respective case sheets at study location and the data is evaluated to report the incidence of pregnancy complications in association with clinical conditions on child birth and their management strategies. A total of 130 pregnant women with clinical conditions were observed and complications were identified in foetus.. The complications like preterm birth (54.34%), low birth weight (31.6%), still birth (14.7%), foetal distress (12%), macrosomia (2.3%), pre-eclampsia (3%) were observed in the study. Complications like macrosomia, still birth were associated with gestational diabetes mellitus, pre-eclampsia in gestational diabetes patients with hypertension as a co-existing condition, pre-term births and low birth weight infants in gestational hypertension and oligohydramnios patients and foetal distress in epileptic patients were observed. Foetal Doppler changes were observed in patients particularly with Epilepsy and abnormal Amniotic fluid Index. This study concludes that most of the complications in the study were associated with at least one or more than one clinical condition. In the study population the prevalence of abnormal Amniotic Fluid Index patients co-existing with other conditions were higher when compared to other conditions. About 50% of the reported preterm births fall under low birth weight category. It is evident that altered amniotic fluid index is the major contributing factor for preterm births. 12% new born were admitted to NICU due to foetal distress which implies foetal morbidity rate. The treatment strategies provided, managed the patient health status during the trimesters, parturition period and declined the foetal mortality. Key words: Child birth, management, anaemia, complications, epilepsy, amniotic fluid index