Abstract
Our obstetricians and gynecologists manage pregnant women with conditions defined as high-risk pregnancies/deliveries by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan. In some cases, these conditions become severe, resulting in premature delivery and subsequent admission of the neonates to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). However, it is unclear if high-risk pregnancies/deliveries also lead to a risk of NICU admission for term neonates. Here, we investigated whether high-risk pregnancies/deliveries that result in term deliveries increase the NICU admission rate for each factor that is considered high risk. We also focused on elderly primiparas at age 40 or greater as one high-risk factor and investigated whether it increases the NICU admission rate. Subjects were 2275 babies born after 37 weeks of gestation between January 2014 and December 2015. The NICU admission rate was significantly higher in the high-risk pregnancy (HR) group than in the low-risk pregnancy (LR) group (16.28% vs 3.79%, respectively; P <0.0001). The NICU admission rate was significantly higher for the elderly primipara group than for the control group (41.86% vs 4.50%, respectively; P <0.0001). Careful management is necessary for high-risk pregnancies as well as neonates at risk.
