[Pregnancy care of visual deficient women: what specificity?].

Objectives: Maternity has been denied to blind women for a long time, and is still often criticized or not understood in a very demanding social environment for the future mothers. Our objective is to describe the follow-up of the pregnancies and the childbirth of the visual handicapped women within the framework of a dedicated network of care liking with the Maternal and Infant Protection Unit and the paediatric ward.

Patients And Method: We studied a retrospective series of 18 women blind or amblyopic followed up at the at the institut de puériculture et périnatologie (Paris, France) from 2001 to 2006. We report the social and morphological characteristics women, the characteristics of the monitoring of their pregnancy and childbirth and the approach of antenatal care. The results were compared with the data of the average French population studied in the perinatal investigation of 2003.

Results: The pregnancies proceeded without particular obstetrical complications and lead to the birth of 20 healthy children. The population of the women is older than the French average, of higher initial weight. There is no increase in the number of consultation and ultrasound scans. The characteristics of the follow-up are discussed.

Discussion And Conclusion: Each maternity team should be able to follow and deliver women with a visual defect. Some specificity however needs to be helped along for these future mothers. The training of the professionals, the work within a dedicated network and the adjusting of our methodologies not only come to improve the pregnancies but also to enrich our practices.