Pre-eclampsia: is it a different disease in primiparous and multiparous women?

The aim of this study was to evaluate differences in clinical and laboratory parameters and differences in the complication rates between pre-eclamptic primiparous and pre-eclamptic multiparous women. A prospective case series of 112 primiparous and 186 multiparous women with pre-eclampsia was conducted at Princess Badea Teaching Hospital; a large tertiary public health service hospital in Irbid, North Jordan. A uniform medical and surgical management protocol was implemented. The main outcome measures included antenatal, intrapartum and puerperal, maternal and foetal complications. Multiple maternal and foetal demographic, clinical and laboratory parameters were studied. As expected, the primiparous were younger than the multiparous women. After adjusting for maternal age, regression analysis revealed no difference in the systolic or diastolic blood pressure in the two groups. It was also demonstrated that there was no statistically significant difference in the clinical presentation, haematological and biochemical parameters or ultimate maternal outcome between the two groups. After adjusting for babies' sex and gestational age, it was demonstrated that there was no statistically significant difference in the following: gestational age at delivery, foetal weight, stillbirth, admission rate to neonatal intensive care unit, neonatal death rate within the first four weeks after birth and incidence of intrauterine growth restriction between the two groups.