High risk scoring for prediction of pregnancy outcome: a prospective study

Abstract

Background: Objectives of current study were to detect high risk factors in pregnancy and to develop a simple scoring system to identify and categorize high risk pregnancies and to predict neonatal outcome by prospective multifactorial analysis of high risk factors. Methods: In this prospective study, antepartum, intrapartum and neonatal parameters were integrated into the clinical records and the relationship of risk score to outcome was evaluated for 415 randomly selected pregnant patients over a period of 1 year. Risk scoring was applied on selected mothers more than 28 weeks of gestation who presented in labour.Results: Out of 415 women, 96 (59%) were High Risk, 191 (46%) were Low risk and 128 (31%) were No risk. In High risk group there were 59 perinatal deaths and perinatal mortality rate was very high (614 per 1000 live births).Conclusions: The risk scoring system can thus be used not only as a test for predicting perinatal mortality but also as a simple and cost effective screening tool for identifying pregnancies at higher risk of perinatal mortality and morbidity so that these are subjected to the special ‘high risk’ care they need.