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Updated: Oct 2, 2026

The Development of Lyophilized Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification Reagents for the Detection of Coxiella burnetii
Published on: April 18, 2016
Q fever during pregnancy: diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up
Didier Raoult1, Florence Fenollar, Andreas Stein
1Unité des Rickettsies, Université de la Méditerranée, Faculté de Médecine, CNRS UMR 6020, 27 Boulevard Jean Moulin, 13385 Marseille CEDEX 05, France. Didier.Raoult@medecine.univ-mrs.fr
Background:
Q fever, caused by Coxiella burnetii, may result in abortions, premature deliveries, and stillbirths in infected pregnant women.
Objective:
To evaluate the best treatment strategy for Q fever during pregnancy.
Methods:
We evaluated the prognosis of 17 pregnant women who developed Q fever with and without co-trimoxazole (trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole) treatment.
Results:
The outcome of the pregnancy was found to depend on the trimester. Abortions occurred in 7 of 7 insufficiently treated patients infected during the first trimester vs 1 of 5 patients infected later. Co-trimoxazole given until delivery protected against abortion (0/4) but not against the development of chronic infections, and it did not significantly reduce the colonization of the placenta (2/4 vs 4/4).
Conclusions:
Our results show that C burnetii infections cause abortion and that women who develop Q fever while pregnant should be treated with co-trimoxazole for the duration of pregnancy, specifically when infected during the first trimester.
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