The effects of spinal anaesthesia for elective caesarean section on uterine and umbilical arterial pulsatility indexes in normotensive and chronic hypertensive pregnant women: a prospective, longitudinal study

Table 1 Demographic characteristics and pregnancy outcomes of the 236 included women

		All	Normotensive	Hypertensive
		n = 236	n = 203	n = 33	p*
Age, mean (SD)		30.0 (6.1)	29.7 (6.0)	31.7 (6.5)	0.110
Parity, median (IQR)		0 (0–1)	0 (0–1)	0 (0–0)	0.047
Education level (in years), n(%)	<7	7 (3%)	4 (2%)	3 (9%)	0.199
	7-9	77 (33%)	66 (33%)	11 (33%)
	10-12	105 (44%)	92 (45%)	13 (40%)
	>12	47 (20%)	41 (20%)	6 (18%)
Body Mass Index^a (Kg/m), mean (SD)		28.5 (5.6)	27.9 (5.3)	32.5 (5.3)	<0.001
Smoking, n(%)		23 (10%)	19 (9%)	4 (12%)	0.857
Gestational age at delivery (weeks), mean(SD)		40.0 (0.8)	40.1 (0.8)	39.5 (0.8)	<0.001
UtA bilateral notching absence^a		228 (97%)	196(97%)	32(97%)	1.000
Birth weight at delivery (g), mean (SD)		3140.2 (340.5)	3123.0 (338.8)	3245.9 (337.1)	0.059
Apgar Index 5’	<7	0(0)	0(0)	0(0)

^aBody Mass Index and UtA notching were determined before the caesarean section; UtA, uterine artery; SD, standard deviation; IQR, Inter-quartile range. The Chi-square or Fisher’s test were used as appropriate to compare frequencies within a single categorical variable or to determine independence when applied to two categorical variables; the t-test was used to compare the means between two independent populations. *p, indicates the homogeneity in the proportions between the hypertensive and normotensive groups.

ISSN: 1471-2393