Association between Maternal Origin, Pre-Pregnancy Body Mass Index and Caesarean Section: A Nation-Wide Registry Study.

ABSTRACT:

Aims

To explore the association between maternal origin and birthplace, and caesarean section (CS) by pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) and length of residence.

Methods

We linked records from 118,459 primiparous women in the Medical Birth Registry of Norway between 2013 and 2017 with data from the National Population Register. We categorized pre-pregnancy BMI (kg/m²) into underweight (<18.5), normal weight (18.5-24.9) and overweight/obese (≥25). Multinomial regression analysis estimated crude and adjusted relative risk ratios (RRR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for emergency and elective CS.

Results

Compared to normal weight women from Norway, women from Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia/Pacific had a decreased risk of elective CS (aRRR = 0.57, 95% CI 0.37-0.87 and aRRR = 0.56, 0.41-0.77, respectively). Overweight/obese women from Europe/Central Asia had the highest risk of elective CS (aRRR = 1.42, 1.09-1.86). Both normal weight and overweight/obese Sub-Saharan African women had the highest risks of emergency CS (aRRR = 2.61, 2.28-2.99; 2.18, 1.81-2.63, respectively). Compared to women from high-income countries, the risk of elective CS was increasing with a longer length of residence among European/Central Asian women. Newly arrived migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest risk of emergency CS.

Conclusion

Women from Sub-Saharan Africa had more than two times the risk of emergency CS compared to women originating from Norway, regardless of pre-pregnancy BMI.

SUBMITTER: Jatta F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8197892 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature