THREATENED ABORTION: A RISK FACTOR FOR POOR PREGNANCY OUTCOME

The scientific literature regarding threatened abortion is relatively limited on the subject ofoutcomes and viability at term. to investigate prospectively the risk of adverse pregnancy outcome inwomen presenting with first-trimester threatened miscarriage, a prospective case control study wasperformed on 600 subjects, 150 women presenting with bleeding in the first trimester and 450asymptomatic age-matched controls. main outcome measures included gestational age and weight atdelivery as well as incidence of adverse pregnancy outcome such as preterm labor, preterm prelaborrupture of membranes (pprom), placental abruption, and low birth weight (lbw). the first-trimestermiscarriage rate in the threatened miscarriage group was 42.7%. compared with controls, womenpresenting with threatened miscarriage were more likely to deliver prematurely, 14.7% compared with52.9%, respectively (relative risk 3.6, 95% confidence interval [ci] 2.4-4.8). they were also morelikely to have pprom, 6.4% compared with 27.5%, respectively (relative risk 4.2, 95% ci 2.6-6.9);placental abruption, 5.7% compared with 1.5%, respectively (relative risk 3.6, 95% ci 1.2-11.3); lbw,14.9% compared with 7.1%, respectively (relative risk 2.1, 95% ci 1.1-3.8) and low lying placenta,1.1% compared with 18.2%, respectively. birth weight 2866 ± 523.3 g compared with 312.45± 591.4respectively, gestational age 35.71 ± 4.3 compared with 38.07 ± 3.2 respectively. first-trimester vaginalbleeding is an independent risk factor for adverse obstetric outcome and this risk factor should be takeninto consideration when deciding upon antenatal surveillance and management of their pregnancies.