Reproductive risk factors of fetal asphyxia at delivery: A population based analysis

To investigate reproductive maternal risk factors of intrapartum fetal asph yxia, we analyzed 556 women with singleton pregnancies complicated by intra partum fetal asphyxia who gave birth at Kuopio University Hospital from Jan uary 1990 to December 1998. The general obstetric population (N = 21746) wa s selected as the reference group and logistic regression analysis was used to identify independent reproductive risk factors. The incidence of intrap artum fetal asphyxia was 2.5%. Placental abruption, primiparity, alcohol us e during pregnancy, low birth weight, preeclampsia, male fetuses, and small -for-gestational age births were independent risk factors of intrapartum as phyxia, with adjusted relative risks of 3.74, 3.10, 1.75, 1.57, 1.49, 1.48 and 1.33, respectively Most cases of intrapartum fetal asphyxia occur in lo w-risk pregnancies and, therefore, risk screening in antenatal care cannot accurately predict which women will eventually need emergency care for feta l asphyxia. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. Ah rights reserved.