[Pregnancy in mixed connective tissue disease]

The authors carried out a retrospective study of the pregnancy of 31 women suffering from mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD). They summed up the number of growing children, stillborns, and spontaneous abortion in the period before and after commencement of the disease process. Their results point to a rather marked occurrence of spontaneous abortion even in the period before the actual disease process. In the majority of patients there were observable clinical signs which, retrospectively, was an autoimmune disease process, but now known as the appearance of MCTD. In the period following the disease only a smaller percentage of patients became pregnant, not on account of their age or previous spontaneous abortions, but rather because of their symptoms. They investigated those clinical abnormalities which could be reasons for the adverse conditions for fetal development in MCTD.