Molnár T, Farkas K, Nagy F et al. Scand J Gastroenterol 2010;45:1302–6.
There are conflicting data regarding the outcomes of pregnancy in women with IBD, with some studies suggesting an increased risk of adverse outcomes and others showing no such increase in risk. Molnár et al. compared pregnancy outcomes and data on infants born to mothers both pre- and post-diagnosis of IBD in this retrospective study. They found that preterm birth and a low birth weight infant were more common in women with IBD, irrespective of whether they had already been diagnosed with IBD or not.
In this retrospective study, the outcomes of 70 pregnancies in women prior to their diagnosis of IBD (24 in women with Crohn’s disease and 46 in women with ulcerative colitis [UC]) were compared with the outcomes of 97 pregnancies in the same women after their diagnosis of IBD (36 in women with Crohn’s disease and 61 in women with UC) in Hungary. Of the latter 97 pregnancies, 63 women were taking some form of IBD therapy. This included 5-aminosalicylates (5-ASAs; n=34), steroids (n=2), azathioprine (n=9), 5-ASAs plus steroids (n=6), and azathioprine plus other medications (n=7).