Female soldiers who give birth within six months of returning from military deployment face twice the risk of having a pre-term baby as other active-duty servicewomen, a new study has found.
The researchers at Stanford University say that these findings indicate a need for better pregnancy planning services for women in the military.
Of the women in the study who gave birth within six months of returning from deployment, 74 percent had been deployed in the period seven to 10 months before giving birth, suggesting that conception occurred during deployment in many cases.
Premature infants are at a higher risk for breathing problems, infections and are more likely to have lifelong developmental and learning disabilities.
Soldiers who give birth within six months of returning from deployment face twice the risk of premature delivery as other active-duty servicewomen, a Stanford University study has found (file image)
The study examined nearly 13,000 births to American soldiers from 2011-14 using anonymous medical and administrative information from the Stanford Military Data Repository.
‘This database allows us to explore the universal issue of healthy mothers and babies, and also the pragmatic issue of how scientific insights can support our servicewomen and contribute to military readiness,’ said Lianne Kurina, PhD, associate professor of medicine at Stanford and senior author of the study.
The findings show that 6.1 percent of the servicewomen studied gave birth prematurely, meaning the baby was delivered three or more weeks early.
That rate is considerably lower than that of the general US population, which was 9.8 percent in 2016.
The researchers attributed this to the fact that soldiers generally have low rates of known prematurity risk factors such as obesity and older age.
However, among women who had recently returned from deployment, 11.7 percent of deliveries were premature.
The soldiers who gave birth soon after deployment were, on average, younger than other military moms, and had lower education and lower income.
‘What’s important is the timing of deployment,’ lead author Dr Jonathan Shaw, a clinical assistant professor of medicine at Stanford, said.
‘Pregnancies that overlapped with deployment or the period of returning home were much more likely to end in preterm birth, which has impacts not only on the health of the infant, but also on the mother and family.’
A baby is considered premature if it is born three or more weeks before the intended due date.
Premature babies are at risk for a number of health problems, some of which have lifelong consequences. It also causes higher stress levels in the parents.
Risk factors include being under or overweight during the pregnancy, having a short time between pregnancies, high blood pressure, smoking or drinking during pregnancy and several others.
Pregnancy during deployment is considered a medical emergency, and expecting moms are required to be immediately returned home upon discovering that they are pregnant.
According to the authors of the study, the fact that many women likely got pregnant during deployment highlights a larger issue of high rates of unintended pregnancy in the military.
‘The concerns raised by these findings are heightened in the context of…emerging evidence that the most reliable forms of contraception (long-acting reversible contraceptives) are underutilized in the Army, especially around the time of deployment,’ the authors wrote in the study’s discussion.
‘This study shows that the time around deployment is a period during which we should empower our soldiers to prevent unintended pregnancies,’ Shaw said.
In addition, the findings could be used to help counsel soldiers who plan to have children during their years of military service.
‘It’s reassuring that deployment itself is not a risk factor for having a premature baby,’ Shaw said. But soldiers should know about the risks of becoming pregnant around the time they are deployed, he added.
‘We could tell them, ‘It’s a pretty stressful time; consider returning home and settling in for a few months before you add to your family.”
Several different factors were kept in consideration during the analysis.
First, the study only includes pregnant servicewomen who had at least a year of medical data prior to the birth recorded in the repository.
Second, they excluded early deliveries that were planned by doctors to preserve the health of the mom or baby.
Of the remaining cases, researchers looked at the timing of a woman’s deployment in relation to the timing of the birth, how many deployments they had across their military career, and whether or not they had a current or past post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis.
Half of the mothers included in the study had been deployed at least once, and only four percent had current or prior PTSD diagnoses.
The most important finding was that women who gave birth within six months of returning home were twice as likely to have a premature delivery than those who had never been deployed.
Additionally, women who gave birth seven or more months after returning home faced no increase in risk of premature birth.
Among those who had recently returned, more lifetime deployments were linked to an increased risk of premature delivery.
Recently returned soldiers were 1.6 times more likely, 2.7 times more likely and 3.8 times more likely than never-deployed women to deliver early if they had a lifetime total of one, two, or three or more deployments, respectively.
Women who had been diagnosed with PTSD were no more likely than other women to deliver prematurely.