Introduction:

Maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity are serious public health problems, so it is essential to work on the identification, recognition and situation analysis of patients treated at high-risk pregnancy centers.

Objectives:

To characterize the pregnant women treated at the Hospital Universitario de la Samaritana (HUS), Bogotá, Colombia, from a demographic, social and clinical point of view in order to identify common factors that may be intervened and, thus, avoid adverse outcomes.

Materials and methods:

Cross-sectional study. 785 medical records of patients with a gestational age >24 weeks treated at the HUS in 2016 were analyzed. Sociodemographic data were collected, as well as data on the following variables: history of diseases, antenatal care, biopsychosocial risk, and obstetric outcomes. A univariate analysis was performed for each variable; measures of central tendency and dispersion and absolute and relative frequencies were calculated for quantitative and qualitative variables, respectively. Maternal health indicators were also calculated.

Results:

47.51% of the pregnant women had a low educational level, 34.39% were single mothers, 32.10% had a previous comorbidity, and 5.85% had insufficient antenatal care. The proportion of preterm births was 23.6 (95%CI: 20.63%-26.69%), the severe maternal morbidity ratio was 157.96/1 000 live births, and the maternal mortality rate was 246/100 000 live births.

Conclusions:

Pregnant women treated at the HUS are mainly young women from areas where the health system is not easily accessible, and who have insufficient antenatal care and a low schooling level. This population has a high rate of severe maternal morbidity and maternal mortality compared to the national reference value, so they would benefit from educational interventions or risk approaches that prioritize these factors in order to prevent adverse maternal outcomes.

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