Pregnancy-birth course in Veneto Region: development of a flexible simulation model for description and forecasting

In the paper a simulation model of pregnancy and birth in Italian Veneto Region has been studied and built up to forecast future requirement of assistance. Main factors conditioning fertility and raise of pathological pregnancy have been statistically determined, in order to represent the dynamical pregnancy and birth evolution of the whole women population. The resulting model, implemented in MicroSaint, is able to foresee the amount of physiological and pathological pregnancies, of normal and pathological newborns and of medical inspections and hospital admissions; that may be done both in current situation and in modified ones, consequent to increase of age of Italian pregnant women and to increase of foreign population.