No Increased Risk of Cardiac Birth Defects in Infants of Mothers With Celiac Disease: A Population and Sibling Comparison

Abstract

INTRODUCTION:Several earlier studies have indicated an increased risk of cardiac birth defects among infants born to mothers with celiac disease (CeD). Through linking nationwide Swedish health care registries, we aimed to investigate maternal CeD and risk of any or cardiac birth defects in their offspring.METHODS:We performed a retrospective cohort study of infants born between 2002 and 2016 to women with biopsy-proven CeD (villous atrophy, Marsh III) matched to infants born to nonceliac women from the general population. Conditional logistic regression with odds ratios (OR) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI) was used to determine the association between maternal CeD and birth defects. To minimize the impact of intrafamilial confounding, we also compared infants born to mothers with CeD with infants born to their nonaffected sisters.RESULTS:A total of 6,990 infants were born to mothers with diagnosed CeD compared with 34,643 infants born to reference mothers. Any birth defect was seen in 234 (33 per 1,000 infants) and 1,244 (36/1,000) reference infants corresponding to an OR of 0.93 (95% CI 0.81–1.08). Cardiac birth defects were seen in 113 (16/1,000) vs 569 (16/1,000) infants (OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.80–1.20). Similar OR for any and cardiac birth defects were also seen in sibling comparisons.DISCUSSION:We found no statistically significant risk of any or cardiac birth defects in infants born to mothers with diagnosed CeD compared with the general population and to their nonaffected sisters.