Abstract

BACKGROUND : Care of critically ill parturients is a challenge in obstetrics. Complications may arise during pregnancy or in the postpartum period which can be life threatening and require intensive care. Though obstetric ICU admissions form a small proportion mortality among them is very high. Critical care management of obstetric patients in developing countries is fraught with the problem of poor health care delivery, late presentation of patients and paucity of ICUs. AIM: The objective of this prospective & descriptive study was to analyze the spectrum of obstetric I.C.U admissions, to identify the common antecedent causes,to analyze the treatment modalities & response ,to study the maternal and fetal outcomes.Study design :This is a prospective study done for 20 months in the department of OBGy –Narayana Medical college superspeciality hospital-a tertiary care centre.The inclusion criteria being all obstetric ICU admissions(booked and unbooked) were evaluated and analyzed. Statistical analysis : The data was entered in Microsoft excel and analyzed using SPSS software (statistical package for social science ver.10.0.5).Results:6.85% of total deliveries during the study period required ICU admissions. Among them our booked cases were only 11.3% and the rest 88.7% were unbooked cases. 92.5% of ICU admissions were antepartum,and only 7.5% were of postpartum status.The other parameters observed were age,parity, antecedent illness,socioeconomic &educational status ,distance travelled & time taken for ICU admission, therapeutic interventions including maternal & fetal outcomes.Conclusion: This study has shown that poverty, illiteracy, lack of awareness,improper antenatal care, non availability of skilled birth attendants, non-existent emergency obstetric care facilities within reach -being responsible for most of the obsteritic ICU admissions leading to maternal / perinatal morbidity and mortality.