Pregnancy in women with reflux nephropathy

Reflux nephropathy is one of the most prevalent renal diseases and a leading cause of chronic renal failure in women-of childbearing age. To evaluate the issue and possible complications of pregnancy in women with reflux nephropathy, we retrospectively analyzed fetal and maternal outcome in 158 women who had 375 pregnancies between 1965 and 1994. The overall fetal death rate was 10.2% and tended to decrease in the 1985 to 1994 decade as compared to the preceding period (8.4% vs. 12.6%). The relative risk of fetal death was 4.8 times greater hypertension was present at conception than in normotensive patients. Fetal death rate was also higher in patients with impaired renal function that in those with serum creatinine < 0.11 mmol/liter at conception (36.7% vs. 7.7%, P < 0.0001). Urinary tract infection accounted for frequent morbidity but seldom resulted in fetal mortality. Maternal renal disease was unaffected by pregnancy, excepted for 4 of the 21 patients with pre-existing renal failure who exhibited an irreversibly accelerated course after pregnancy. We conclude that pregnancy is essentially successful and uneventful in patients diagnosed with reflux nephropathy who have normal blood pressure and preserved renal function, whereas the fetal prognosis is more compromised and there is a risk of accelerated progression of maternal renal disease when serum creatinine concentration is in excess of 0.22 mmol/ liter. This suggests that women with reflux nephropathy should preferably conceive before having reached that stage of renal failure.