Association of maternal work with adverse perinatal outcome

To investigate the relationship between maternal work and pregnancy outcome.

Over a 4-month period from October 2004 through February 2005, 2,419 women were interviewed shortly after delivery in the three main public and Health Insurance hospitals in Alexandria, Egypt. Of these, 730 (30.2%) were working and 1,689 (69.8%) were not working prior to delivery. A detailed description of working status was analyzed, along with a risk profile which was compared between the two groups.

There was no significant association between different work characteristics and perinatal outcomes except for that between working posture, stress and delivery of small-for-gestational-age (SGA) babies. There was an excess rate of SGA and perinatal death among the non-working group, while preterm delivery was significantly increased among those who worked throughout the whole pregnancy. After adjusting for confounders, the risk of preterm delivery was no longer significant (OR = 1.2, 95% CI = 0.96-1.7). On the other hand, working status had a beneficial effect on SGA and perinatal death (OR = 0.41, 95% CI = 0.26-0.64 and OR = 0.26, 95% CI = 0.14-0.48, respectively).

These results cast doubt on the risk of adverse pregnancy outcome for women who work during pregnancy. Work per se does not constitute a health risk factor and may even have a positive social impact on pregnancy. Further research on this topic in our region is recommended.