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 11 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.