Maternal care, pregnancy complications and birth outcomes among native and migrant women in Portugal

Teixeira, Cristina; Muralova, Ana; Cancela, Marilyne; Barros, Henrique

http://hdl.handle.net/10198/19198

Use this identifier to reference this record.

Name:	Description:	Size:	Format:
Maternal care, pregnancy complications and birth outcomes among native and migrant women in Portugal.pdf		156.67 KB	Adobe PDF	Download

Send Feedback

Authors

Abstract(s)

Migrants can experience inequalities in care and health outcomes even in countries with universal access to care, regardless of legal status, as it is the case in Portugal. Thus, we assessed the prevalence of late antenatal care, pregnancy complications, obstetric interventions and birth outcomes considering the country of origin of women delivering in Portugal Methods: As part of an ongoing population-based study, enrolling native and foreign-born women recruited in 32 Portuguese public hospitals at delivery, 3884 women were classified in groups according to their country of origin and native country language as Portuguese (PT), Portuguese speaking Latin American Countries (BR), Portuguese speaking African countries (PALOP) and other countries (PNSC) Results: The prevalence (%) varies for late antenatal care (p<0.001), from 14.5 (PT) to 29.8 (PALOP); pre-eclampsia/eclampsia (p = 0.031), from 0.8 (BR) to 2.4 (PALOP); instrumental vaginal birth (p<0.001), from 8.6 (PALOP) to 18.1 (PNSC); C-section before labour (p<0.001), from 11.5 (PNSC) to 15.2 (BR); and C-section during labour (p<0.001), from 15.5 (PNSC) to 21.7 (PALOP). No differences were found for twin pregnancy (p = 0.128), gestational diabetes (p = 0.283), placental disorders (p = 0.743), induced labour (p = 0.138), preterm delivery (p = 0.897) or admission to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (p = 0.918). Conclusions: Health inequalities in care of migrant pregnant women are particularly evident for those born in African countries with Portuguese as the official language. Key messages: In Portugal women coming from different countries converge in regards to indicators of perinatal health. Speaking the language of the host country does not overcome inequalities of care among migrants.

Keywords

Women health Migrant Maternal care

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10198/19198

Citation

Teixeira, Cristina; Muralova, A; Cancela, M; Barros, Henrique (2018). Maternal care, pregnancy complications and birth outcomes among native and migrant womenin Portugal. European Journal of Public Health. ISSN 1101-1262. 28:4, p. 247-248