Meconium-Stained Amniotic Fluid and Associated Factors among Women Undergoing Childbirth in Maternity Teaching Hospital in Erbil City

Background and objectives: The purpose of this study was to identify the risk factors for Meconium-Stained Amniotic Fluid among women who delivered vaginally and were admitted to the delivery room at Maternity Teaching Hospital in Erbil city." Methods: A descriptive case-control study was conducted in the labor ward of Maternity Teaching Hospital in the Kurdistan region, Iraq. The study setting was the delivery room. A non-probability purposive sample included 342 mothers with singleton pregnancies: 171 cases with Meconium-Stained Amniotic Fluid and 171 controls with clear amniotic fluid. The data were analyzed using Version 23 of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Results: The majority of women (82.7%) were illiterate, and more than half (58.2%) were multiparous. 57% of the newborns were male. Approximately 18.7% of cases had caesarean sections compared to 5.3% in the control group, which is statistically highly significant (P-value < 0.001). Additionally, about 30% of cases involving neonates were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit, compared to just 1.8% in the control group, which is also statistically highly significant (P-value < 0.001). Postdate (B Coefficient: 2.487, 95% Confidence Interval: 4.686 to 30.854) and fetal distress (B Coefficient: 3.048, 95% Confidence Interval: 5.662 to 78.393) were highly significantly associated with Meconium-Stained Amniotic Fluid. Conclusion: There is a highly significant association between risk factors such as postdate and fetal distress in the case-control groups. The following factors did not significantly correlate with the case-control groups: preeclampsia, premature rupture of membranes, polyhydramnios, oligohydramnios, prolonged labor, induction of labor, or spontaneous labor.