Departments of Pediatrics and Family Medicine, University of Washington, Center for Health Studies, Group Health Cooperative/Permanente, Seattle, Washington, USA. d12@u.washington.edu
OBJECTIVE: To describe perinatal outcomes and maternal characteristics among American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) women with diabetes in pregnancy. STUDY DESIGN: A retrospective analysis of live births to AI/AN, African American and white women with diabetes (242,715) during pregnancy for the 1989-1991 period (latest available at the time of study) was conducted utilizing a linked birth/infant death database from the National Center for Health Statistics. AI/AN perinatal outcomes and maternal characteristics were compared to those of African American and white women. Similar analyses compared urban and rural AI/AN populations. RESULTS: AI/AN women were more likely than white women to receive inadequate prenatal care (10.4%), to have higher rates of pregnancy-induced hypertension (9.1%) and to have significantly lower rates of primary cesarean delivery (16.9% vs. 22.3%). The rate of macrosomia among births to AI/AN women (24.2%) was notably higher as compared to that in the white population (17.9%). Rates of musculoskeletal and chromosomal anomalies were also higher among AI/AN women, 9 and 4, respectively, per 1,000 live births, as compared to 6 and 2 per 1,000 for the white population. CONCLUSION: Multiple maternal risk factors and birth outcomes demonstrate the need for further research to evaluate methods of improving care in this population.