Doctors say that new moms should wait a year before falling pregnant again to avoid fatal complications at birth

New moms who become pregnant less than a year after giving birth could put their unborn baby and baby at risk.

The discovery was made by experts from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, who studied 150,000 births in Canada.

According to the researchers, parents who waited 12 to 18 months after the first child reduced the risk in the short and long term for the mother and the baby.

While parents who had little time between pregnancies were at risk of maternal mortality or severe morbidity.

The researchers found that mothers over 35 years of age faced a short pregnancy interval when all women were at risk, especially those aged 20 to 34 years.

Laura Schummers, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia, said, "Our study has found an increased risk for mother and child when pregnancies are widely spaced, including for women over 35 years old. years.

"The results for older women are particularly important because older women tend to space their pregnancies more closely and often do so intentionally."

The authors described this study as "the largest assessment of how the role of spacing of pregnancies could be influenced by the age of the mother".

It is also the first survey of pregnancy spacing and maternal mortality or severe morbidity – rare but potentially fatal complications of pregnancy, labor, and childbirth – in a high-income country. authors.

Among women over 35 who gave birth six months after a previous birth, the researchers found a risk of 1.2% maternal mortality or severe morbidity.

Waiting 18 months between pregnancies, however, reduced the risk to 0.5%, said the authors.

For younger women, the researchers found a risk of spontaneous premature delivery of 8.5% – delivery before 37 weeks of pregnancy after the start of labor – for pregnancies spaced six months apart.

For younger women who waited 18 months between pregnancies, the risk dropped to 3.7%.

Dr. Wendy Norman, associate professor at UBC, lead author, said, "An optimal one-year interval would be achievable for many women and clearly deserves to reduce the risk of complications."