Peripartum infections comparable in patients with IBD and control subjects

Israel: Researchers have found in a new study that Peripartum infections were comparable in patients with IBD and control subjects. According to a new study Infections during pregnancy were similar in both normal people and patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

The study has been published in the journal Inflammatory Bowel Diseases.

Immunomodulatory drugs are routinely prescribed to pregnant women with inflammatory bowel illnesses, and they may be more susceptible to side effects such as peripartum infections. In this study, Bar Narkis and colleagues looked at the risk for peripartum infections in patients with IBD in comparison to control individuals and identified possible risk factors for these patients.

The peripartum infection rates and risk variables were examined between pregnant women with and without IBD in this retrospective cohort research. The Rabin Medical Hospital in Israel, a significant referral center for patients with IBD, hosted a specialized combined maternal-fetal medicine and gastroenterology clinic for pregnant women with IBD between 2012 and 2019. 5 IBD-free women were paired with each patient based on the newborn's birthdate (2 years), age, parity, and BMI. Chorioamnionitis, maternal fever (>38°C) discovered during delivery or postpartum hospitalization, and positive culture obtained during the hospitalization were considered to be indicators of peripartum infection.

The key findings of this study were:

1. In all, 888 control patients were paired with 195 pregnant women with IBD (72 [37%] had ulcerative colitis, and 123 [63%] had Crohn's disease).

2. The average illness lasted 8.4 ± 7.02 years.

3. Tumor necrosis factor inhibitors (27%) and 5-aminosalicylic acid (44%) were the two treatments for IBD that were utilized by 81% of patients.

4. 49 control participants (5.5%) and 15 cases (7.7%) both showed peripartum infections.

5. There was no medicine that notably raised the risk of peripartum infection.

6. Women with IBD were more likely to have a cesarean birth, but this was not related to an increased risk of peripartum infection.

"These comforting findings from this study add to our understanding of obstetric outcomes in IBD patients and further the dialogue between patients and their caregivers," added the Authors in conclusion.

Reference:

Narkis, B., Hadar, E., Barbash-Hazan, S., Houri, O., Shay, V., Ollech, J. E., Yanai, H., Dotan, I., & Avni-Biron, I. (2022). Peripartum Infections Among Women With Inflammatory Bowel Disease. In Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. Oxford University Press (OUP). https://doi.org/10.1093/ibd/izac185