Antenatal complications and their impact on maternal and perinatal outcome of twin gestations

Objectives: to evaluate the prevalence of various antenatal complications in twin gestation and to critically analyze the maternal and perinatal outcome in terms of morbidity and mortality associated with twin pregnancy. study design: cross-sectional observational study place and duration of study: department of obstetrics and gynecology,sheikh zayed hospital,lahore from january 2001 to december 2003. methodology: the analysis included data on all women with twin pregnancy < 24 weeks of gestation during the study period. data was obtained from the hospital based maternal health medical records and included demographic details,antenatal complications and maternal and perinatal outcomes. results: total of 78 patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria during the study period. 70 cases had one or more antenatal complications. the most common complication observed was preterm labour (38.5%) followed by anemia,pregnancy-induced hypertension,mal-presentation of 1 st twin and intrauterine growth retardation. 58.5% of patients underwent operative delivery. the overall perinatal mortality rate was found to be 134.6/1000 while perinatal morbidity was 41.43%. postnatal maternal morbidity including major as well as minor complications was also significantly high in complicated twin pregnancies. conclusion: twin pregnancy is definitely a high risk group associated with increased prevalence of antenatal complications. this leads to disproportionately high maternal morbidity and perinatal morbidity and mortality.