PRETERM DELIVERY AND LOW-BIRTH-WEIGHT AMONG REFUGEES IN GREECE

Recently Greece received a large number of refugees mainly from Easter n European countries, Middle East, Africa and the Pontus region. Refug ee status, implying psychosocial adversities and financial problems, h as traditionally been associated with unfavourable pregnancy outcome. This study aimed to compare the incidence of preterm delivery and low birthweight among 638 refugees and 1231 indigenous women giving birth at the same hospital in Athens. Conditional logistic regression was us ed in the analysis to account for parity and delivery date (matching v ariables) as well as controlling explicitly for maternal age and gende r of the neonate. It was demonstrated that refugee status did not over all influence the occurrence of preterm delivery or low birthweight, t hus implying that these two variables are not sensitive or early indic ators of the adverse effects of psychosocial stress suffered by refuge es.