Comparison of bio-sociodemographic, obstetric and perinatal characteristics among immigrant and native women in the Metropolitan Region in Chile.

Background: International migration is an increasing public health concern, particularly regard to maternal and neonatal health.

Objective: To compare obstetric and neonatal variables among native and immigrant childbearing women in a clinical hospital in Santiago, Chile.

Method: A cross-sectional, analytic study with 2598 childbearing women and their newborn examined between January and July 2015. Data were collected from clinical records by students who had previously been trained. Ethical approval was obtained from the local Ethics Committee at the hospital. All participants signed an informed consent form. A descriptive and comparative analysis was performed. For comparison, a Chi-square test was used for categorical variables, and Student t-test was used for quantitative variables.

Results: Among the included women, 41.5% (n = 1078) were immigrants. The immigrants' mean age was 28.1 ± 6.4 years, and that of natives was 26.8 ± 6.9 (p < 0.001). Among natives, the obesity rate was 38.3%, as compared to 19.3% among immigrants (p < 0.001). A significantly higher rate of caesarean section was seen among natives (36.8%) than among immigrants (31.7%). Obstetric morbidity, pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes and prematurity were significantly higher among natives. There was no difference regarding low birth weights.

Conclusion: In general, immigrants present better maternal and neonatal indicators than native women. Controversially, this is known as the 'healthy immigrant' phenomenon in the literature.