Association of rheumatologic disease with preeclampsia

To determine whether maternal rheumatologic disease is associated with an increased risk of adverse obstetric or neonatal outcomes.

Using an institutional database, we identified all women with diagnosed rheumatologic disease (n = 114) who delivered a baby at our institution during a 33-month period. We compared the incidence of adverse obstetric and neonatal outcomes among these women with the incidence among women without rheumatologic diseases (n = 18,534).

Women with rheumatologic diseases were more likely to have preeclampsia than women without rheumatologic disease (8.8% versus 2.3%, P <.001) Women with rheumatologic diseases were also at increased risk of preterm delivery (15.2% versus 7.8%, P =.002) and small-for-gestational-age infants (8.0% versus 3.1%, P =.001) compared with women without rheumatologic disease.

The finding that women with rheumatologic diseases are at increased risk of adverse obstetric outcomes suggests a need for heightened clinical vigilance and further research into the common pathophysiologic correlates.

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