Birth outcomes among women with congenital neuromuscular disabilities.
Michelle Huezo García, Samantha E Parker, Julie M Petersen and 2 others
PMID 34980574WHAT IT FOUND
Women with congenital neuromuscular disabilities had a higher risk of preterm birth and smaller-for-gestational-age infants compared to women without these disabilities.
The study was small and estimates were imprecise, so the exact size of the risk is unclear.
Key findings
01Women with congenital neuromuscular disabilities were more likely to have a preterm birth and deliver a small-for-gestational-age infant compared to women without these disabilities.
02After adjustment, women with congenital neuromuscular disabilities had a nearly four times higher risk of preterm birth compared to women without these disabilities.
03The study found no difference in the rates of low birthweight or large-for-gestational-age infants between the two groups.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The number of women with congenital neuromuscular disabilities was small, which makes the estimates of risk imprecise. The study could not distinguish between preterm births that were medically indicated and those that occurred naturally. Data was collected over a long period (1976-2015), so clinical practices and patient characteristics may not reflect current populations. The study relied on self-reported data from interviews, which can be subject to recall errors. The control group had a lower rate of preterm birth than expected in the general population, which may have exaggerated the relative risk for women with disabilities.
Declared interests
The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the higher risk of preterm birth as a direct effect of the disability itself. The study was small, the estimates were imprecise, and women with disabilities in the study had higher rates of smoking and other health conditions that independently increase the risk of adverse birth outcomes.