Sociomedical Characteristics of Pregnant Women Carrying a Child with a Known Congenital Abnormality

Introduction: Assessment of living conditions and the lifestyle, the quality of life and obstetric history of expectant mothers largely determines the health resource of their future children.

 Objective: To assess medical and social characteristics, obstetric history and the quality of life of pregnant women carrying a child with known health deviations.

 Materials and methods: The survey was conducted in 2023–2024 enrolling 854 pregnant women carrying a child with a known congenital abnormality. Their sociomedical characteristics and obstetric history were established using a specially developed questionnaire. The quality of life was assessed using the 36-item short form survey instrument (SF-36)  in comparison with pregnant women carrying a healthy child matched by age, marital status, and place of permanent residence.

 Results: The majority of pregnant women carrying a child with birth defects belonged to the age group of 35–39 years (49.2 %), were married (92.7 %), had higher education (78.7 %), were hired workers of commercial or budgetary organizations (57.4 %), had a moderate or high income (85.7 %), had no bad habits before pregnancy (85.5 %); 50.0 % of the respondents had a history of chronic diseases. Most women registered with the antenatal clinic before 12 weeks of pregnancy (89.0 %). We found that 43.3 % of the women were expecting the first child but only 34.4 % were pregnant for the first time. A history of abortions mainly associated with spontaneous termination of pregnancy (28.1 %) was reported by 46.6 % of the pregnant women. According to all scales of the SF-36 questionnaire, the quality of life of pregnant women carrying a child with health problems was lower than that of pregnant women carrying a healthy child, except for mental health indicators (70.8 ± 18.0 against 67.8 ± 15.9).

 Conclusion: The compiled sociomedical profile and the established characteristics of the quality of life of pregnant women carrying a child with a known health anomaly can be used to assess perinatal risks when planning pregnancy and when developing prevention programs for this group of childbearing women.

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