title: Acute appendicitis and adverse pregnancy outcomes: a nationwide population-based study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Acute appendicitis is the most common non-obstetric surgical procedure in pregnant women. Using two large-scale nationwide population-based datasets, this study aimed to assess the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes between mothers with and without appendicitis in Taiwan.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study used two nationwide population-based datasets: the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Dataset and the Taiwan national birth certificate registry. This study included 908 women who had live singleton births and who had been hospitalized with a diagnosis of acute appendicitis, and another randomly selected 4,540 women as a comparison group. Conditional logistic regression analyses were performed to calculate the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes including low birth weight (LBW), preterm birth, small for gestational age (SGA), cesarean section (CS), congenital anomalies, Apgar scores at 5 min (<7), and pre-eclampsia/eclampsia.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The adjusted odds ratios for LBW, preterm birth, SGA, CS, and congenital anomalies in women with acute appendicitis were 1.82 (95 % CI = 1.43-2.30), 1.59 (95 % CI = 1.25-2.02), 1.33 (95 % CI = 1.12-1.60), 1.24 (95 % CI = 1.07-1.44), and 2.07 (95 % CI = 1.07-4.03), respectively, compared with women without acute appendicitis after adjusting for highest maternal educational level, marital status, geographic region, gestational diabetes, gestational hypertension, coronary heart disease, anemia, hyperlipidemia, obesity, and alcohol abuse/alcohol dependence syndrome, infant sex and parity, and paternal age.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There were increased risks for having LBW, preterm infants, SGA, congenital anomalies, and for experiencing CS among women with acute appendicitis than comparison women.
authors.affiliation: Division of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Po-Li
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Joseph J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Keller
authors.forename: Hung-Hua
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.forename: Herng-Ching
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Lin
mesh_terms: D001064:Appendicitis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011159:Population Surveillance; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011256:Pregnancy Outcome; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology