Stillbirth may signal risks for the mother

NEW YORK, June 20 (Reuters) A study from Israel indicates that women who have had a stillborn child are at greater risk of dying over the subsequent decades than women who've had only live-born babies.

There is growing evidence that pregnancy complications and having a low-birthweight baby are associated with a greater likelihood of heart-related problems for mothers, Dr Ronit Calderon-Margalit, of Hadassah-Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and colleagues write in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. ''Little is known about the long-term (outcomes) of mothers whose infants were stillborn.'' The researchers linked data from the Jerusalem Perinatal Study, a database of all births to residents of western Jerusalem, to the Israeli Population Registry in order to follow mothers who gave birth at least twice between 1964 and 1976. They compared the survival of 595 women who had at least one stillbirth with that of 24,523 women who had only live births.

Women who had stillbirths were more likely to have heart disease, type 1 diabetes, or other medical conditions before they became pregnant, the team reports. They were also more likely to develop high blood pressure, diabetes, and placental disorders during pregnancy.

During an average follow-up of 36.5 years, 78 (13 per cent) mothers who had a stillborn child died compared with 1518 (6.2 per cent) of those without any stillbirths. The risk of dying in that period remained 40 per cent higher for mothers of stillborn babies even after accounting for age and socioeconomic status.

''Mothers who had stillbirths were at increased risk for death due to coronary heart diseases, all circulatory causes, and renal causes,'' Calderon-Margalit and colleagues report.

They conclude that further research is needed in order to determine ''whether this is a universal phenomenon or one that is specific to certain ethnic groups.'' REUTERS AGL KN0930