The Department of Nursing congratulates Dr. Adejoke Ayoola who successfully defended her dissertation entitled "Timing of Pregnancy Recognition as a Predictor of Prenatal Care Initiation and Birth Outcomes" at Michigan State University on December 5, 2007. Dr. Ayoola participated in graduation exercises in East Lansing on December 7, 2007. A brief description of Dr. Ayoola’s dissertation follows:
In recent times in the United States, adverse pregnancy and birth outcomes such has low birth weight and preterm births has been on the increase; the United States continues to have the highest infant mortality rate among the industrialized countries (Hamilton, Minino, Martin, Kochanek, Strobino, & Guyer, 2007). It is therefore necessary to examine new means to improve maternal and child health during pregnancy and the eventual birth outcomes.
Early pregnancy is a critical period for normal fetal development. During this important time, many women do not realize they are pregnant and risky behaviors could have been inadvertently carried into the early pregnancy. Existing studies have not examined the relationship between the time of pregnancy recognition and birth outcomes such as prematurity, LBW, and admission to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). In addition, a woman who does not recognize her pregnancy early may not initiate prenatal care (PNC) early and may continue unhealthy behaviors throughout the pregnancy.
This study therefore examined whether the time of pregnancy recognition predicts the time of initiation of PNC, the number of prenatal visits and birth outcomes such as prematurity, low birth weight, rates of admission in NICU and infant mortality. The study is a secondary data analysis of the Pregnancy Risk Assessment and Monitoring System (PRAMS) multi-state data for United States from 2000-2004. The PRAMS program entails cross-sectional surveys, addressing maternal behaviors and experiences that occur before, during, and shortly after pregnancy among U.S. women of childbearing age. The data are representative of resident women of childbearing age in 29 U.S. states who had live births between 2000 and 2004 within 2 to 6 months prior to being contacted. The final analysis sample used in this study comprises 136,373 survey respondents.
Reference
- Hamilton, B. E., Minino, A. M., Martin, J. A., Kochanek, K. D., Strobino, D. M., & Guyer, B. (2007). "Annual summary of vital statistics: 2005," Pediatrics, 119 (2), 345-360.
