Maternal hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus carrier status during pregnancy and long-term respiratory complications in the offspring

Objective: Maternal HBV or HCV carrier status is a cause for concern regarding both the course of pregnancy and the short-term perinatal outcomes. Our main aim was to evaluate whether offspring born to carrier mothers during pregnancy, also suffer from long-term pediatric respiratory morbidity (until 18 years of age). Method of study: A population-based cohort analysis was conducted at a single tertiary medical center. The study included all singleton deliveries between the years 1991-2014, comparing incidence of respiratory-related hospitalization of offspring born to mothers who were carrier of HBV or HCV during their pregnancy to those born to nonexposed mothers. Respiratory morbidities were based on a predefined set of ICD-9 codes. A Kaplan-Meier survival curve was used to compare cumulative hospitalization incidence between the groups and a Cox regression model was used to adjust for confounding variables. Results: During the study period, 242,342 deliveries met the inclusion criteria. Of them, 771 (0.31%) were to HBV or HCV mother carriers during pregnancy. A Kaplan-Meier curve demonstrated that children born to HBV or HCV carriers had higher cumulative incidence of respiratory morbidity (Log rank test p = 0.007). In the Cox regression model, while controlling for maternal age, diabetes mellitus, hypertensive disorders, caesarian section and gestational age at birth, maternal HBV or HCV carrier status was noted as an independent risk factor for long-term respiratory morbidity in the offspring (adjusted HR = 1.43, 95% CI 1.07-1.90, p = 0.015). Conclusions: Maternal HBV or HCV carrier status in pregnancy may increase offspring susceptibility to long-term respiratory morbidity.