Longer pregnancy tied to higher risk of stillbirth, newborn death: Study

LONDON: Pregnant women who continue to carry their babies after they reach full term have a higher risk of stillbirth and newborn deaths than mothers who deliver by 37 weeks' gestation, a recent study suggests.

Overall, pregnancies that continued 41 weeks or longer had the greatest risk of stillbirths and newborn fatalities within the first 28 days of life. At 37 weeks, the risk of stillbirth was roughly 1 for every 10,000 pregnancies, the study found. This risk steadily rose, reaching roughly 32 stillbirths for every 10,000 pregnancies by 42 weeks.

But because these final weeks are so important to infant development, in 2013, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists put forward more precise definitions."Early term" is week 37 through the end of week 38, and late term would be week 42 and beyond. "Fundamentally, we know that the risk increases slightly with each subsequent week and rises even faster after 41 weeks," said Dr. Aaron Caughey, chair of obstetrics and gynecology and associate dean for women's health research and policy at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

The analysis was not designed to determine why the risks increase with longer gestation. And the researchers lacked data on individual women's circumstances, so they could not say whether specific health issues or complications for mothers or babies might have contributed to the risk of stillbirth or newborn death.

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