The aim of the study was to estimate the possible risk of adverse birth outcomes of children born to mothers with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
The dataset of large population-based Hungarian Case-Control Surveillance System of Congenital Abnormalities from 1980-1996 was evaluated including 22,843 cases with congenital abnormalities and 38,151 matched controls without any defect.
36 cases (0.16%) had mothers with RA, while 68 controls (0.18%) were born to mothers without RA (OR=0.9, 95% CI=0.3-1.6). A higher risk for congenital abnormalities in the offspring of pregnant women with RA was not found. In fact there was a larger mean birth weight in the newborns without any defect of mothers with RA and it was associated with a somewhat lower rate of low birth weight.
RA seems to have a beneficial effect not only for pregnant women but for their foetuses as well.