Abstract:
BACKGROUND- Short inter-pregnancy interval refers to inter pregnancy interval of less than 24 month, it is a global public health issue with 1 in every 4 pregnancy occurs in this range .short interpregnancy interval is known to negatively affect perinatal, neonatal and child health outcomes . Previous studies in Ethiopia mainly focused on determinants of short interpregnancy interval rather than its association with adverse birth outcome.
Objective- To examine association between short interpregnancy interval and adverse birth outcome
Method- An institution based cross sectional study with internal comparison was conducted in Gandhi memorial hospital among 424 mothers using structured questionnaires. After the data was collected, it was entered into Epi info version 7.2 then was exported to and analyzed using SPSS versions 25. Odds ratio along with 95% CI was computed to ascertain association between the outcomes and short interpregnancy interval. A p-value of < 0.05 was considered as cut off point to assess significance of associations in the multivariate analysis
RESULT-. Multivariate analysis showed that a short interpregnancy interval was associated with a higher odd of preterm birth [AOR 3.57 95%CI (2.07, 6.16)] and low birth weight [AOR 5.03 95%CI (2.75, 11.9)] compared to mothers with normal interpregnancy interval.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION. -The findings of this study show the significant association between short interpregnancy interval and adverse birth outcomes like preterm birth and low birth weight, which underscore the importance of maternal and child health Policy makers and health care professionals provide assistance to strengthen birth spacing education, counseling, and services as integral elements of adverse birth outcome reduction strategies