Objective: To evaluate incidence of selected pregnancy complications and their importance towards clinical status of fetus and newborn. Design: Retrospective comparative epidemiological study. Setting: Institute for the Care of Mother and Child, Praha4-Podolí; Office of Health Information and Statistics, Praha. Methods: Comparison of incidence of selected pregnancy complications according to the WHO recommendations and related perinatal mortality using the data from innovated „Report on mother“ of the Office of Health Information and Statistics database in 2000. Results: Pregnancy complications were observed among 17.6% of all pregnant women in 2000 and participated on 47.1% of total perinatal mortality, which was 4.4‰. Incidence of pregnancy complications varied from 0.2% of placenta praevia up to 5.6% of threatening preterm labor. Their severity, according to complication-specific perinatal mortality, varied from 2.6‰ for gestational hypertension up to 103.5‰ for premature separation of placenta. Every sixth mother had more than one complication; the most frequent combination was threatening preterm labor with another complication. The incidence of pregnancy complications increases with age of mother and is also associated with lower gestational age of newborn. Complications related to placental dysfunction tend to lead to stillbirths while complications related to preterm labor result more in early neonatal mortality. Conclusions: We identified the contribution of particular pregnancy complication to perinatal mortality which varies substantially according to its incidence in population and the negative effect on fetus at particular gestational age.

        Key words: pregnancy complications, incidence, severity, age of mother, gestational age, perinatal mortality