Department of Medicine (Redelmeier, May), University of Toronto; Evaluative Clinical Sciences Program (Redelmeier, May, Thiruchelvam), Sunnybrook Research Institute; Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (Redelmeier, Thiruchelvam); Division of General Internal Medicine (Redelmeier), Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre; Centre for Leading Injury Prevention Practice Education & Research (Redelmeier); Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Barrett), University of Toronto; Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (Barrett), Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ont. dar@ices.on.ca.
Pregnancy causes diverse physiologic and lifestyle changes that may contribute to increased driving and driving error. We compared the risk of a serious motor vehicle crash during the second trimester to the baseline risk before pregnancy.
We conducted a population-based self-matched longitudinal cohort analysis of women who gave birth in Ontario between April 1, 2006, and March 31, 2011. We excluded women less than age 18 years, those living outside Ontario, those who lacked a valid health card identifier under universal insurance, and those under the care of a midwife. The primary outcome was a motor vehicle crash resulting in a visit to an emergency department.
A total of 507,262 women gave birth during the study period. These women accounted for 6922 motor vehicle crashes as drivers during the 3-year baseline interval (177 per mo) and 757 motor vehicle crashes as drivers during the second trimester (252 per mo), equivalent to a 42% relative increase (95% confidence interval 32%-53%; p
Notes
Cites: J Trauma. 2005 Jul;59(1):112-616096550
Cites: CMAJ. 2014 Feb 4;186(2):118-2424324015
Cites: JAMA. 2000 May 24-31;283(20):2701-1110819955