Association between maternal age and adverse perinatal outcomes in Arba Minch zuria, and Gacho Baba district, southern Ethiopia: a prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: Globally, delayed childbearing to the advanced age is a growing option. It is an emerging public health issue in developing countries. Currently, adverse perinatal outcomes significantly increased. A few studies showed the effect of advanced maternal age on adverse perinatal outcomes. However, most used secondary data or chart reviews, and this increases the risk of biases. Besides, there are limited studies in-country Ethiopia as advanced maternal age steadily increased. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the status of advanced maternal age and its effect on perinatal outcomes in the study setting. METHODS: A community-based prospective cohort study was conducted among 709 study participants from October 15, 2018, to September 30, 2019, in Arba Minch zuria, and Gacho Baba district, southern Ethiopia. The data were collected by a pretested interviewer-administered structured Open Data Kit survey tool and analyzed by SPSS version 25. The log-linear regression model was used to compare perinatal outcomes among women aged 20–34 years and ≥ 35 years. The log-likelihood ratio tested for the goodness of fit. In this study, P-value < 0.05 was considered to declare a result as a statistically significant association. RESULTS: In this study, 209(29.5%) of the women were age group ≥35 years old, and 500(70.5%) were age group from20–34 years old. Stillbirth (β = 0.29, 95%CI: 0.05, 0.52), and neonatal mortality (β = 0.11, 95%CI: 0.01, 0.21) were significantly associated with the advanced maternal age. CONCLUSIONS: Perinatal outcomes such as stillbirth and neonatal mortality were independently associated with advanced maternal age after controlling for possible cofounders. Therefore, different strategies should design for the women who planned to bear child, and information should provide for women who are advanced age or delayed childbearing to alert them.