Importance of lifestyle factors in pregnancy: A clinical study

Abstract

Background: Complications in pregnancy are common and threatened miscarriage is occurring in approximately 20% of all pregnancies. The present study was conducted to determine various lifestyle factors leading to threatened abortion. Materials & Methods: This study was conducted in the department of Gynaecology and Obstectrics which included 118 women. General information such as age, marital status, ethnicity, gestational age (wks), educational level; housing, number of children, pre-pregnancy BMI (kg/m2), regularity of menstrual cycles; presence of nausea, history of miscarriage, history of benign gynaecological conditions; smoking status, alcohol consumption, caffeine intake, mobile phone use (in hours per day), computer use (hrs/day), history of depression or schizophrenia, extent of bleeding were recorded. The 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) was used to measure the stress levels of the women in the one-month period preceding their presentation to the clinic. Results: In our study, women with 34 years were 17. 104 were married and 14 were unmarried, 78 were Nepalese, 30 were Chinese and 10 were from other ethnicity. Women had either high school education (100) and secondary school (18), number of children were 0 in 98 women, 1 in 14 women and 2 in 6 women. The difference was significant (P< 0.05). Patients with BMI 23 were 34. Women with regular menstrual cycles were 102 whereas 16 had irregular cycle. The difference was significant (P< 0.01). 78 had nausea while 40 had not. 18 gave positive history of previous miscarriage while 100 did not. 102 patients gave positive history of termination of pregnancy and 108 had gynecological diseases, 112 had given history of smoking in pregnancy, 30 had 1 or more household having history of smoking, 82 had positive history of caffeine intake, 78 had history of mobile use more than 4 hours, 58 had history of computer use more than 4 hours, 16 had history of alcohol consumption during pregnancy, 18 had history of depression, 44 had high stress score, 96 gave history of spotting bleeding during pregnancy, 8 had threatened abortion. The difference was significant (P