Increased postperinatal child mortality among children of mothers exposed to measles during pregnancy.
Previous studies of an urban and a rural epidemic in Guinea-Bissau have shown perinatal mortality to be statistically significantly higher among children whose mothers have been exposed to measles during pregnancy. After the epidemic in 1970 in Bandim, a district in the capital of Guinea-Bissau, such children also had a postperinatal childhood mortality risk (7 days to 5 years of age) of 0.229, compared with 0.134 for other children in the community. None of the mothers had developed clinical measles. In a Cox regression analysis adjusting for known background factors, the mortality hazard ratio between the exposed and the controls was found to be 2.0 (95% confidence interval 1.1-3.8). After a small rural measles epidemic in Quinhamel in 1983, the mortality hazard ratio for children of mothers exposed during pregnancy compared with controls was 1.7 (95% confidence interval 0.6-4.6). Exposure to measles or some concomitantly transmitted pathogen during fetal life may contribute to the high childhood mortality found in many developing countries.
Aaby
P
P
Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Seim
E
E
Knudsen
K
K
Bukh
J
J
Lisse
I M
IM
da Silva
M C
MC
D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005865:Gestational Age; D006169:Guinea-Bissau; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008457:Measles / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality; D010500:Perinatology; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012737:Sex Factors