Background
Women with hypertension in pregnancy often require care from a multidisciplinary team, more intensive monitoring, antenatal admissions, longer postnatal stay that may include acute care and/or give birth to a preterm baby requiring a lengthy stay in a nursery.
There are reports of the physical, psychological and long term health risks following a pregnancy complicated by hypertension, but there is scant research reporting women’s experiences of having hypertension in pregnancy.
Aim
To compare the pregnancy and birth experiences of women who had hypertension with women who had normal blood pressure in pregnancy.
Methods
This is a sub study of the Postpartum Physiology, Psychology and Paediatric follow-up Study (P4 Study) being undertaken at St George Hospital. Women who gave birth between 1st January 2013 and 30th December 2016 were included. Birth experience data were collected at six months postpartum. Women were asked questions about their birth experience, rating their responses on a seven point Likert Scale.
Data analysis
Descriptive statistics were applied to demographic data to compare the hypertensive (HT) group to the normotensive (NT) group in baseline characteristics and labour and birth outcomes. An ordinal logistic regression analysis compared the NT and HT groups on the Likert Scale scores.
Results
There were 237 women in the NT group and 84 in the HT group. Both groups were similar in general demographics and women in the HT group experienced more intervention during their labour and birth. Women in the NT group were 3-5 times more likely to respond positively to the questions than those in the HT group.
Conclusion
Overall the women in the NT group were more positive about their labour and birth experience.