Prenatal care and perinatal outcome

Objective: To relate the number of prenatal consultations to perinatal outcomes. Methods: Cross-sectional study conducted from September 2014 to August 2015 using a database of pregnant women attending a public maternity hospital in the city of Joinville, Santa Catarina, Brazil. The research included single pregnancy patients divided into 2 groups: a group of 6 or less prenatal consultations and a group of 7 or more prenatal consultations. The following primary outcomes were analyzed: delivery method, prematurity, low birth weight, macrosomia, perinatal death. The analysis was carried out using a multinomial logistic regression model with a 95% confidence interval. Results: In all, 4,260 records were analyzed: 266 (6.2%) had 6 or less prenatal consultations and 3,994 (93.7%) had 7 or more prenatal consultations. The groups presented different maternal characteristics – age ≤20 years (27.4% vs 21.3% p=0.020), incomplete primary education (28.1% vs 21% p=0.006) and complete secondary education (25.9% vs 36.9% p=0.000), systemic arterial hypertension (9.77% vs 6.5% p=0.039) – and different neonatal characteristics – prematurity (23.6% vs. 6.6%, p=0.000) and full-term birth (76.3% vs 93.3% p=0.000). The group of women who had 6 consultations of less was at increased odds of prematurity (OR=2.837), low birth weight (OR=1.895) and perinatal death (OR=5.584). Conclusion: The pregnant women who had less than seven prenatal consultations are at increased odds of prematurity, low birth weight and perinatal death.