A 10 year retrospective review of factors associated with poor foetal outcome in patients with placenta praevia at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, Nigeria.

BACKGROUND

Placenta Praevia (PP), a placenta that is implanted in the lower uterine segment has the potential to cause severe obstetric complications including foetal death.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the factors associated with poor foetal outcomes in patients with placenta praevia.

METHOD: A retrospective review of the foetal outcome of all cases of PP managed at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital over 10 years (2011 to 2021).Chi-square test or Fixer exact test as appropriate were used to determine the factors associated with the development of poor foetal outcome. P-value < 0.05 was consider statistically significant.

RESULTS

There were 26,407 deliveries during the study period out of which 166 were placenta previa; a prevalence of 0.6%. Most of the patients, 84.8% (95/112) were unbooked. The majority 50.9% (57/112) had blood loss ≥ 1000 ml and 30.4% (34/112) foetuses were of low birth weight. Low birthweight, hypotension, anaemia, unbooked status, vaginal delivery, and EBL ≥ 1000 mls were found to be significantly associated with foetal death.

CONCLUSIONS

Poor foetal outcome was associated with Unbooked status, anaemia, vaginal delivery, EBL of ≥ 1000 mls, hypotension and duration of hospital stay ≥ 7 days in patients with placenta previa in our environment.