Results
We recruited 369 pregnant women with the risk for PE, of which 174
high-risk pregnant women were followed-up till delivery after dropouts
in each trimester. The mean [SD] age of the study participants was
28.05[6.05] years. Of the identified 174 high-risk pregnant women,
67 pregnant women reported a diagnosis of PE. This represents an
incidence of PE as 38.51 per 100 high-risk pregnant women during this
period. The age-specific incidence rate (per 100 persons) of PE among
high-risk pregnant women is described in Table 1. The highest rate of PE
incidence was observed in the age group of above 30 years.
Table 2 displays the patient characteristics and risk factors associated
with the development of PE. The women who had a history of multiple
gestations were more likely to have PE in comparison to those who did
not have such a history. The women who married consanguineously were at
very high risk for the onset of PE than the one whose marriage was not
consanguineous. A previous history of abortion seemed to pose a moderate
risk for the onset of PE while a family history of diabetes, PE as well
as a previous history of hypertension, gestational diabetes, or a
conception history through IVF seemed to have no significant influence
on the development of PE.
On multivariate analysis, a family history of chronic high blood
pressure, history of abortion, consanguineous marriage, the sex of the
new-born and the maternal blood group were independently associated with
the occurrence of PE and were found to be statistically significant
(Table 3). Risk factors such as the absence ofa family history of
chronic hypertension, history of abortion, non-consanguineous marriage,
and maternal blood group of AB-type are protective factors of PE
development. While the sex of the new-born being female was found to be
a risk factor for developing PE in the study population.