Patient-Focused Disaster PreparednessExposure to Hurricane Katrina, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and Birth Outcomes
Section snippets
Methods
We conducted a prospective cohort study at the prenatal care clinics at Tulane-Lakeside Hospital in New Orleans and Woman’s Hospital in Baton Rouge (about 120 km away from New Orleans and less exposed to Hurricane Katrina) between January 2006 and June 2007. Two hundred twenty women from New Orleans and 81 women from Baton Rouge who were pregnant during Hurricane Katrina or became pregnant immediately after the hurricane were recruited. Inclusion criteria were speaking English, planning to
Results
Table 1 presents the characteristics of the study population. After excluding missing data, 7.2% were 18- to 19-years old and 19.5% were ≥35 years old; 43.8% were non-Hispanic white and 41.6% were non-Hispanic black; 45.5% were primiparous. Of the multiparous women, 5.3% had prior history of low birth weight infants. The rates of PTSD and depression were 4.4% and 14.4%. The rates of low birth weight and preterm birth were 9.7% and 9.7%.
Discussion
Hurricane Katrina affected almost everyone in the New Orleans area, through the stress of relocation, uncertainty, discontinuity in medical care, social network disruption, and loss of lives, jobs, and property. Although the exposure to such a devastating disaster as Hurricane Katrina could potentially have substantial effects, we do not see a significantly increased rate overall of low birth weight (9.7%) or preterm birth (9.7%) in our study sample. However, our study suggested that pregnant
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This study was supported by NIH/NICHD 3U01HD040477-0552. Dr. Harville is a BIRCWH scholar, supported by Grant Number K12HD043451 from the National Institute of Child Health And Human Development.
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Child Health And Human Development or the National Institutes of Health.