The economic implication in pregnancy outcome.

The economic implication in pregnancy outcome is evaluated in a Spanish homogeneous population. The potential risk is assessed for: prematurity, intrauterine growth retardation, perinatal mortality and major malformation. The husband's employment appears worthless as an economic parameter. The best estimators of economic level in our population are the total income per capita and the monthly food allowance per capita. Study results clearly support the relationship between poverty and prematurity, intrauterine growth retardation and major malformation. No correlation is found between perinatal mortality and lower economic conditions, which differs from previous reports. The author suggests that perinatal problems be differentiated from each other in studies of risk factors.