TUESDAY, Sept. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Since the late 1960s, fetal survival following a preeclamptic pregnancy has dramatically increased because of improved medical management, according to a Norwegian study published in the Sept. 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Olga Basso, Ph.D., of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, N.C., and colleagues analyzed 1967-2003 data on 770,613 Norwegian pregnancies without preeclampsia and 33,835 pregnancies complicated by preeclampsia.
Among preeclamptic pregnancies, the researchers found that inductions before 37 weeks of gestation increased from 8 percent in 1967-1978 to nearly 20 percent in 1991-2003. Between the two time periods, neonatal deaths in all infants born before 34 weeks of gestation declined from more than 25 percent to 5 percent. The researchers also found that the adjusted odds ratio for stillbirth decreased from 4.2 in 1967-1978 to 1.3 in 1991-2003 for preeclamptic compared with non-preeclamptic pregnancies and that the odds ratio for neonatal death after preeclamptic pregnancy remained relatively stable (1.7 in 1967-1978 versus 2.0 in 1991-2003).
"This stability in neonatal risk is remarkable, considering the increasing number of very preterm deliveries in recent years resulting from aggressive obstetric management of preeclampsia," the authors conclude. "Modern medical management of preeclampsia appears to have been effective in preventing fetal death without causing an increase in infant or maternal death."
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