Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Concise report
Increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes in women with rheumatoid arthritis: a nationwide population-based study
  1. Herng-Ching Lin1,
  2. Shu-Fen Chen1,
  3. Hsiu-Chen Lin2,3,
  4. Yi-Hua Chen4
  1. 1School of Health Care Administration, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan
  2. 2Division of Rheumatology, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
  3. 3College of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan
  4. 4School of Public Health, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan
  1. Correspondence to Yi-Hua Chen, School of Public Health, Taipei Medical University, 250 Wu-Hsing Street, Taipei 110, Taiwan; yichen{at}tmu.edu.tw

Abstract

Objective Using a 3-year nationwide population-based database (2001–3), this study aims to examine the relationship between rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Methods The study used the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Dataset and birth certificate registry. In total, 1912 mothers with RA and 9560 matched comparison mothers were included. Separate conditional logistic regression analyses were carried out to explore the risk of low birthweight (LBW), preterm births, small for gestational age (SGA) infants, preeclampsia and delivery mode (vaginal vs caesarean section (CS)) for the study and comparison groups.

Results Regression analyses showed that the adjusted odds of LBW, SGA infants, preeclampsia and CS for women with RA were 1.47 (95% CI 1.22 to 1.78), 1.20 (95% CI 1.05 to 1.38), 2.22 (95% CI 1.59 to 3.11) and 1.19 (95% CI 1.07 to 1.31) times, respectively, that of comparison mothers.

Conclusion Women with RA had an increased risk of LBW, SGA babies, preeclampsia and CS compared with unaffected women.

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Footnotes

  • Patient consent Obtained.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.