Factors associated with Pregnancy intentions after Preeclampsia and Eclampsia in Mulago National Referral Hospital

Abstract

Introduction: Preeclampsia is a major cause of maternal and perinatal mortality, and morbidity. The risk of recurrence is about 14% but is reported even higher in a study based on hospital records, with a 20-fold increase in the pre-eclampsia risk compared with parous women with no previous pre-eclampsia .This study was aimed at finding out pregnancy intentions and associated factors for women with history of preeclampsia and Eclampsia in prior pregnancies, considering the risk of recurrence, in order to design a proper tool for preconception counseling and prevention of recurrence. Methods: It was a health facility based cross-sectional study that was conducted in Mulago National referral hospital; Directorate of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Kawempe, Kampala-Uganda during the months of February to May 2019.We did consecutive sampling to sample a total of 364 participants in the postnatal ward, postnatal and immunization clinics. Semi-structured interviewer administered questionnaires were used for data collection, entered into Epidata 4.4.2 and then transferred to STATA version 11 for analysis. Results :The participants were aged between 15 to 46 ,most (79.1%) had intention to get pregnant after pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, and the timing was in the 2nd and 3rd year .The major associated factors were parity (p<0.001) and Chronic Hypertension (p=0.022).Age was found to be a confounding factor during multivariate analysis. Conclusion: Majority of women in child bearing age will have more children despite their prior pregnancy being complicated by Preeclampsia and eclampsia, and this decision is affected by age, parity and a history of chronic hypertension in these women. Therefore all these women should be counseled about the risk of recurrence and given preventive strategies at discharge or during postnatal care.