Risk Factors Associated with Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes Among Women Who Were Attending Postnatal Services at Thika Level Five Hospital Kiambu County, Kenya
Authors: Havyarimana Eloi , Nyamai Joseph , Mogere Dominic 
Published: October 2023

Stillbirths, preterm deliveries and neonatal deaths are examples of adverse pregnancy and infant outcomes that continue to be a global public health problem. The World Health Organization (WHO), States, and non-governmental organizations (NGO) have invested a lot of time, money, and resources into promoting the benefits of safe pregnancy and delivery. Despite efforts to promote healthy pregnancy, delivery, and maternal mortality, these numbers continue to be high. Pregnant mothers and their fetus are put in danger due to several risk issues. Despite the limited data from Thika level five hospitals, concern about poor pregnancy outcomes have been growing. The study’s goal is to pinpoint the risk factors connected to pregnancy outcomes at Thika level five hospitals. An analytical cross-sectional study was carried out on women between the age of 15 and 49 who were attending postnatal services at Thika level 5. The study used qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques. 80 samples were chosen out of 100 population. A Convenience sampling and purposive sampling were used.  structured questionnaires were used at the health care facility. The mean age was 15 to 19. Most of them were married almost   both living in urban and rural areas. According to education, most have reached college education but unfortunately, 55% of them are unemployed and 51% of them are living in temporally house, most generating income below 5000. Most of them live 5km away from the nearest health facility. 55% of them attended antenatal and its essential services in public facilities, motivated by self-motives. 47% of the respondents delivered via spontaneous vertex delivery followed by 37% of caesarean sections.  Most complications were obstructed labor and most adverse outcomes were preterm labor. The most common pre-existing medical conditions were anemia and HIV/AIDS.  The most common adverse pregnancy outcome found in this study included PPH, Obstructed labor, APH, neonatal mortality, preterm babies, and stillbirth and low birth weight babies. Inferential statistics including correlation and bivariate analysis were used. The regression coefficients results portrays that socio-demographics characteristics score 0.983 with standard error of 0.361. Pre-existing medical conditions scored 0.897 with a standard error of 0.323. Intrapartum care scored 0.920 with a standard error of 0.240. Chi-square analysis for all the variables was calculated at 47.633 and the p value less than 0.05 (p< 0.05). Correlation study indicates a positive significance between pregnancy risk and socio-demographics, pre-existing medical conditions with a value of 0.934.  The researcher concludes that numerous pregnancy problems arise from lack of medical knowledge and financial structure coming from the women who are pregnant. Concluding to the fact that when it comes to risk in pregnancy there are a number of factors that come into play. This ranges from ages of the women to pre-existing medical conditions when it comes to childbirth. Overall it is highly important for women who are prone to have complications in child labor to have medical checkups constantly so that any complications cane be dealt within a reasonable timeframe and with little consequences to the women or their unborn babies.