RESUMO
Pre-cclampsia and eclampsia remain one of the major obstetrical problems in less developed countries. Proper antenatal care [ANC] with regular measurement of blood pressure remains the mainstay of screening for hypertension in pregnancy. The aim of the current study was to identify frequency and characteristics of women with toxemia of pregnancy, assess both the quantitative and qualitative adequacy of antenatal care among cases with toxemia of pregnancy and to evaluate the effect of antenatal care on maternal and perinatal outcome. A cross-sectional case series study design was utilized. The study population was all cases, with confirmed diagnosis of toxemia of pregnancy who were admitted to El-Shatby University hospital during the period from January to May 2005. A structured interviewing schedule was used to collect data on characteristics of cases, maternal and fetal outcome. Site, adequacy and quality of received antenatal care were assessed. Out of total cases [336], 14.29% were diagnosed as mild pre-eclampsia, 83.31% were found to have severe pre-eclampsia while 2.40% were suffering from eclampsia. The severity of the condition was significantly associated with older maternal age, multiple pregnancy, primigravity, nulliparity, low socioeconomic conditions, husband's smoking and excessive caffeine consumption. Three-quarters of eclampsia cases [75.0%] didn't receive antenatal care and 60.0% of severe pre-eclamptics received inadequate antenatal care. The mean percent score of quality care domains of antenatal care content for mild pre-eclamptics was 75.62 +/- 13.80%. This was significantly higher than that for those of severe [59.96 +/- 27.95%] or for eclampsia cases [48.75 +/- 20.04%] where X2 of Kruskal-Wallis=8.316 [F<0.001]. Adverse maternal and fetal outcome occurred in 79.4% of women and 72.3% of babies for those who received poor quality ANC. In conclusion, the complications of pre-eclampsia and eclampsia could be prevented by wide spread use of adequate antenatal care, education and training of primary medical care personnel, prompt diagnosis of high risk patients and timely referral to higher level health care