Possible association between acute pelvic inflammatory disease in pregnant women and congenital abnormalities in their offspring: a population-based case-control study.

BACKGROUND

The possible association between acute pelvic inflammatory diseases (APID) of pregnant women and structural birth defects, that is, congenital abnormalities (CA) in their offspring, has not been studied.

METHODS

The data set of the Hungarian Case-Control Surveillance of Congenital Abnormalities, 1980 and 1996, were evaluated.

RESULTS

There were 67 out of 22,843 (0.29%) cases and 128 out of 38,151 (0.34%) controls with mothers who had prospectively and medically recorded APID during the second and/or third gestational months (adjusted prevalence OR with 95% CI: 0.95, 0.70-1.29). However, of 12 CA groups evaluated, APID was associated with a higher risk only for cardiovascular CAs (adjusted prevalence OR with 95% CI: 2.6, 1.2-5.4) and the observed number of cases with atrial septal defect, type II with maternal APID exposure exceeded 4.2-fold its expected number.

CONCLUSIONS

A possible explanation for the association of APID with higher risk for cardiovascular CA is the high fever of APID, but this signal finding needs confirmation.