Maternal and perinatal outcome of pregnancies after the age of 45

To describe the maternal and perinatal outcome of pregnancies in women aged 45 years or more at the time of delivery and to compare them with pregnancies in women aged between 20 and 29 years.

A retrospective review of hospital deliveries after 28 weeks gestation was performed at the Princess Badeea Teaching Hospital in North Jordan for patients delivered between 1st April 1994 and 31st December 1997. We compared the maternal and perinatal outcome of pregnancies in women aged of 45 years or more (study group, n = 114) with women aged between 20-29 years (control group, n = 121) delivered at the same hospital during the same period.

The incidence of pregnant women aged 45 years or more was 3.3 per 1,000 births. The median maternal age was 45 years. The majority of women (81.6%) were 45 to 46 years old. Gravidity and parity was significantly higher in the study group (p < 0.0001), also antenatal and medical complications as pre-eclampsia and diabetes mellitus were higher in the study group. Caesarean section rate, incidences of placental abruption and placenta previa were more common in older patients compared with young patients (32.4 vs 10.7%, 6.1 vs 0.8% and 4.4 vs 1.6%, respectively). There were no differences in the incidences of neonatal deaths, lethal malformations and fetal weight between the 2 groups.

Women aged 45 years or more at delivery may expect a good pregnancy outcome but should expect a higher incidences of placental abruption, placenta previa, preeclampsia and caesarean delivery.