Prevalence of High Risk Pregnant Women Who Attend Antenatal Care and Associated Factors in Jimma Medical Center, Jimma Town, South Western Ethiopia

Background: Around 303,000 women and adolescent girls pass on from pregnancy and childbirth-related complications in 2015 and 99% of these deaths occur in developing countries. That same year, 2.6 million babies were stillborn. Almost all of the maternal deaths (99%), child deaths (98%), Sixty percent of the stillbirths (1.46 million) occurred during the antepartum period and mainly due to untreated maternal infection, hypertension, and poor fetal growth and occurred in lowand middle-income countries. These maternal deaths could have been prevented if the pregnant women or adolescent girls had been able to access quality antenatal care. A high-risk pregnancy refers to anything that situates the mother, fetus, or neonate at increased risk for morbidity or mortality during pregnancy or childbirth, even during postpartum. Methods: Facility based cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the prevalence of high risk among pregnant women. Non-probability, Convenient sampling technique was used to collect the data by using structured, closed ended and pretested questionnaire and the data collection will be conducted by interviewing the study participants. Data was analyzed by using tally sheets and computer. The association between variables was analyzed using Chi-square test. The result was presented in tables and figures. Result: Out of 314 pregnant mothers with response rate of 100% 47 (15.0%) were < 19 years, 261 (83.12%) were 2034 years and 6 (1.9%) were ≥ 35 years. While, 60 (19.1%) of the study participants were primigravida mothers and the rest were multigravida. In addition, 210 (66.9%) were at their first visit in first trimester, 77 (24.5%) were at second trimester, and 27 (8.6%) were at third trimester. Among all, the prevalence of high risk pregnancy was 83 (26.43%). The leading risk factor identified in the index pregnancies were HTN 40 (12.5%), anemia 15 (4.8%), 12 (3.8%) had DM, 9 (2.87%) had APH, 7 (2.2%) had malpresentation. Conclusion: From the total of study participant’s hypertension, anemia, DM, APH and mal presentation founded as the major health problems. Expanding the utilization of antenatal care, early detection, problem identification and management for all pregnant women should be under taken.