title: Anencephaly and maternal common cold.
abstract: To study the risk of anencephaly related to common cold during pregnancy, a case-control study was made. The series comprised 393 Finnish mothers of anencephalic children and their time-area-matched controls in the period 1964 through 1982. Seventy mothers of anencephalic infants and 17 controls had reported common cold in the first trimester [adjusted odds ratio 4.5; 95% confidence interval (2.2-9.1)]. Reported common cold in the second trimester was not associated with anencephaly. As suggested by our previous cohort study in the same population, a true viral influenza resembling "common cold" might not explain the observed association.
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kurppa
authors.forename: P C
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Holmberg
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kuosma
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Aro
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Saxén
mesh_terms: D000757:Anencephaly / Q000209:etiology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003139:Common Cold / Q000150:complications*; D015986:Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011247:Pregnancy; D011251:Pregnancy Complications, Infectious; D011261:Pregnancy Trimester, First; D011262:Pregnancy Trimester, Second; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors