Women With CMT Risk Childbirth Complications - MDA research news

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Women With CMT Risk Childbirth Complications

(Research News April 1, 2005 from MDA)

Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease, a disorder of nerve fibers that

connect the spinal cord with the rest of the body, is a factor for

complications during pregnancy and delivery, says a large study

conducted in Norway between 1967 and 2002 and published recently in

Neurology.

Jana Hoff and colleagues at the University of Bergen reviewed the

records of 108 births by mothers with CMT and compared them to a

reference group of 2.1 million births by women without CMT.

In the CMT-affected group, the rate of abnormal positioning of the

baby was 9.3 percent, compared to 4.5 percent in the unaffected

women. Bleeding after delivery occurred in 12 percent of the CMT-

affected women, compared with 5.8 percent of the women without CMT.

Women with CMT delivered their babies by Caesarean or with the aid of

forceps or a vacuum device 29.6 percent of the time, while women

without CMT underwent these procedures 15.3 percent of the time. The

majority of CMT Caesarean operations were emergencies, and forceps

were used three times as often in the CMT group as in the non-CMT

group.

The researchers speculate that causes of these differences could

include the presence of CMT-related weakness in the baby and lack of

muscle tone in the mother's uterus.

" CMT has up till now been acknowledged as a disease mainly affecting

distal [far from the body's center] extremities with no significant

effect on pregnancy, delivery and the newborn, " the authors

write. " The results from our study question this view and show that

maternal CMT should be considered a potential risk factor during

delivery. "

Similar results were recently reported with respect to delivery

complications in women with myasthenia gravis (see " Pregnancy in MG, "

Quest March-April 2004).