ndings hold for them.
Age is another factor that can jeopardize the pregnancies of Saudi females, mostly through low-birth weight complications. In this regard, Serenius, Edenessee and Swailen (1988) found that the younger the women, the less likely they are to have prenatal care and, therefore, the more likely they are to have low-birth weight infants. While this finding was true for both Saudi Arabian and Swedish females in Serenius et. al's study, Saudi females who were either teenagers or over the age of 35 were found to be significantly more susceptible to low birth-weight complications than were the Swedish women of the same age.
This finding that Saudi females are more susceptible to the contribution of age to problematic pregnancies could be the result of an age/educational level interaction; this based on findings observed in a study of Saudi women conducted by Fakhr, Malasi, and Abu-Dagga (1988). In this study, it was found that Saudi teens as well as middle age and older females have mistaken notions about reproductive issues, notions which are due to their poor education. These mistaken notions were found to affect these women's reproductive health care in general.
In addition to bearing low birth-weight infants, older mothers have a high rate of congenital anomaly in surviving infants. (Shapiro, McCormick, Starfield, Krischer & Bross (1980).
Serenius, Edenessee and Swailen (1988) found that there were medical factors predating pregnancy that placed Saudi women at risk for pregnancy and birth complications. One of these was parity. Specifically, the authors found that Saudi women with parities of four or more were 2 to 3 times were more likely to have low birth weight infants than were women whose parities were lower.
Maternal disease predating pregnancy is also another risk factor. According to Hansen (1985), in Third World countries, many maternal diseases placing fetuses at risk are the result of m...