Objectives: To look for a possible association of maternal haemorrhoid during pregnancy with a risk of congenital abnormalities in their children.
Methods: Comparison of the prevalence of medically-recorded haemorrhoid in pregnant women who had fetuses/newborns (cases) with congenital abnormalities and healthy babies (controls) in the population-based Hungarian Case-Control Surveillance System of Congenital Abnormalities.
Results: Of 22,843 cases with congenital abnormalities, 798 (3.49%), while of 38,151 controls, 1,624 (4.26%) had mothers with recorded and usually treated severe haemorrhoids. We found a higher risk for exomphalos (OR with 95% CI: 4.9, 1.7-7.9), and malposition-malrotation of gut (OR with 95% CI: 17.2, 2.1-142.0) which were present in 14 and 8 children of pregnant women with haemorrhoid, respectively. These associations could not be explained by teratogenic effect of maternal haemorrhoid or by drug treatments, so we hypothesized a possible common genetic background.
Conclusions: The higher frequency of exomphalos and malposition-malrotation of gut found in the children of mothers with haemorrhoid during pregnancy requires further study.
