ABSTRACT
The aim of the study is to attempt to quantify pregnancy outcome among pregnant women attending for labour in Basrah General Hospital.Avenue: Basrah General Hospital from 1 st of Nov. 2003 to 3 rd of March 2004. A total of 400 pregnant women were studied which resulted in 392 live born babies and 8 still births. The outcome was measured in relation to gestational age [pre term, term and post term], type of delivery [Spontaneous normal vaginal, caesarean section or assisted by the use of forceps] and status of the foetus [alive and normal baby, alive but with gross congenital defects or stillbirth]. In addition live born babies were followed up for 28 days to ascertain the status of each baby at the end of this period whether alive or dead. The main results were as follows: with respect to gestational age at the time of delivery, 34 were preterm, 362 term and 4 post term. For the type of delivery, 244 had spontaneous vaginal delivery, 98 induced vaginal delivery, 55 caesarean section and three assisted deliveries. The live normal born babies totaled 385; the rest were either live with congenital defects 7 or stillbirths 8. At the end of the neonatal period, 374 of the 392 live born babies survived and 18 died. This gives a neonatal mortality rate of 46/1000 live births. It is concluded that pregnancy losses are high even at late pregnancy and the neonatal mortality is very high. More efforts are needed to improve the quality of maternal and child health care and further research is highly recommended