Chronic maternal hepatitis B virus infection and pregnancy outcome- a single center study in Kunming, China

Chinese population has a high prevalence of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, the impact of which on pregnancy outcome remains controversial. A single-center retrospective cohort study was performed in Kunming, a multi-ethnic city in south-western China to examine this issue.

The singleton pregnancies delivering at ≥28 weeks gestation under our care in 2005-2017 constituted the study cohort. Maternal characteristics and pregnancy outcome were compared between mothers with and without seropositivity for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) determined at routine antenatal screening.

Among the 49,479 gravidae in the cohort, the 1624 (3.3%) HBsAg seropositive gravidae had a lower incidence of nulliparity (RR 0.963, 95% CI 0.935-0.992) and having received tertiary education (RR 0.829, 95% CI 0.784-0.827). There was no significant difference in the medical history, pregnancy complications, or labor or perinatal outcome, except that HBV carriers had significantly lower incidence of labor induction (RR 0.827, 95% CI 0.714-0.958) and of small-for-gestational age (SGA) infants (RR 0.854, 95% CI 0.734-0.994). On regression analysis, maternal HBV carriage was independently associated with spontaneous labor (aRR 1.231, 95% CI 1.044-1.451) and reduced SGA infants (aRR 0.842, 95% CI 0.712-0.997).

Our 3.3% prevalence of maternal HBV infection was around the lower range determined in the Chinese population. The association with spontaneous labor and reduced SGA infants could have helped to promote the perpetuation of the infection through enhanced survival of the offspring infected at birth, thus explaining the high prevalence in the Chinese population.