[Thyroid disease in the pregnancy and congenital malformations of newborns]

The aim of this study was to compare thyroidal status of mothers who delivered newborns with morphological congenital malformations and mothers with healthy newborns.

One-time cross-sectional study.

3rd internal clinic FN LP, Kosice.

We examined 43 mothers with newborns born with congenital malformation and 76 mothers with healthy newborns. The protocol included anamnesis, basic physical examination, ultrasonography of the thyroid, assessment of the mothers' plasma fT4, TSH and anti-TPO levels, and comparison of the birth weight and birth length of the newborns. The results were statistically processed by PC programs StatsDirect 2.6.2 and MS Excel 2000.

The thyroid volume was significantly greater in mothers with newborns with congenital malformation as in the control group (p<0.001). The birth weight and birth length was significantly lower in newborns with malformations (p<0.0001 resp. p<0.001). We found no differences in the plasma levels of fT4, TSH and anti-TPO between these groups.

Thyroid disease of the mother can contribute to the congenital malformations of the newborn although there was found no direct association between mothers' thyroid autoantibodies and creation of congenital malformations of the child, yet.