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 10 May 2008 00:40 BST

Race 'affects birth complications'

Friday, 02 Mar 2007 07:55
Perinatal mortality determined by race

Health In Focus 

Race impacts on the odds of complications occurring during labour, whether before, during or after giving birth, a new study claims today.

UK researchers found that babies born to south Asian women have a higher risk of perinatal mortality (death before, during or shortly after birth) than babies born to black or white women.

Nearly 200,000 white, black and south Asian women who were expecting their first child and who delivered a single baby weighing at least 500 grams at 24 to 43 weeks participated in the study.

Results showed that perinatal mortality differed significantly between the racial groups.

The mortality rate among black women was lower before 32 weeks than among white women but after this time the opposite was true.

"Perinatal mortality was highest among south Asian women at all gestational ages and increased the fastest at term," the researchers write in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

"The most important risk factor for antepartum stillbirth in white women was placental abruption, but the most important factor in south Asian and black women was birth weight below 2,000 grams."

The mortality rate was still found to be highest in south Asian women even when factors for stillbirth, including congenital abnormality, fever, maternal body mass index and abruption to the placenta, were taken into account.

As a result of their findings the researchers argue that there are genetic variations in gestational length and that increased surveillance is needed for south Asian and black women in the late stages of pregnancy.End of story

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