Number Of U.S. High-Risk Pregnancies Increasing, AP/Boston Globe Reports

The number of "high-risk" pregnancies -- which has been used to refer to pregnant women older than age 35 or women who have conditions, such as high blood pressure, that could be dangerous for the fetus -- is increasing in the U.S., the AP/Boston Globe reports. According to the AP/Globe, in 2005 there were more than 104,000 births to women ages 40 to 44 and 6,500 births to women ages 45 and older. The number of hospital admissions for diabetes among pregnant women and new mothers increased from 175,655 in 1993 to 269,861 in 2004 and admissions for high blood pressure increased from 260,222 to 403,271, according to the March of Dimes. Improved medical care and an increase in the number of HIV-positive women, multiple births, cancer survivors and medication use during pregnancy also have contributed to the increase in high-risk pregnancies, according to the AP/Globe. There have been tens of thousands of organ transplant recipients, breast cancer patients and HIV-positive women who have become pregnant in the last several years. The results of pregnancies among women living with "life-threatening conditions that once made a safe pregnancy almost inconceivable" have been "so surprisingly good that they are overturning decades of gloomy dogma about who is medically fit to have a child," the AP/Globe reports. Newer HIV/AIDS drugs have been effective at preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission, and about 6,000 to 7,000 HIV-positive U.S. women give birth annually. Mary D'Alton, obstetrics chief at Columbia University Medical Center, said that pregnancy outcomes for women with medical problems "have been better than we would expect" but that complications are more common. She said that about 50% of transplant recipients give birth prematurely, adding that she has replaced the term "high-risk" with a 1-to-10 scale. Vincent Armenti of Temple University, who runs a registry that tracks births of transplant recipients, said that women who want to become pregnant should be given advice based on solid research "instead of an emotional feeling that some people just shouldn't have a baby" (Marchione, AP/Boston Globe, 2/11).

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