Claire Jansson-Knodell, MD: Treating Pregnant Women With Celiac Disease

Pregnant women with celiac disease are at an increased risk of a number of negative outcomes, including preeclampsia, placental diseases, obstetric complications, and small for gestational age offspring.

In data presented during the 2023 Digestive Disease Week (DDW) in Chicago, a team of investigators studied outcomes within this patient population.

In the retrospective cohort study, the investigators sued the National Inpatient Sample for all pregnant women who delivered babies between 2015-2019, which included 12 million delivers, 10,555 of which were from women with celiac disease.

The results show pregnant women with celiac disease were not only at a higher risk of several pregnancy and delivery related complications, but also less likely to have a full-term uncomplicated delivery (odds ratio [OR], 0.15; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.09-0.26) compared to the cohort without celiac disease.

However, there was not much of a difference in maternal mortality between the 2 groups [n = 0; 0% vs n = 895; <0.1%; P = 0.7].

For offspring, babies of celiac moms were more likely to be small for gestational age (OR, 1.26; 95% CI, 1.01-1.57) and experience distress (OR, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.17-1.42) during delivery.

In an interview with HCPLive®, Claire Jansson-Knodell, MD, associate staff, Cleveland Clinic, explained what the advice is for pregnant women with celiac disease in an effort to reduce the risk of these types of outcomes.