| Summary: | Introduction: The aim of this study was to evaluate a group
of infants born to women with tuberculosis (TB) during
pregnancy to determine the neonatal morbidities and its
outcomes associated with tuberculosis in pregnancy.
Materials and Methods: Data from January 2007 to
December 2021 was collected for analysis as part of a
retrospective cohort study. This study was conducted in a
tertiary public hospital in Malaysia, Hospital Sultan Idris
Shah (HSIS). Cases were identified from the hospital’s
bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination notification
forms and merged with records from the neonatal intensive
care unit’s census. Controls were infants born to mothers
unaffected by TB within the same hospital and year as the
index case (1:4 ratio). Descriptive statistics and logistic
regression were used to analyse the data. The main outcome
measures were the risk of congenital tuberculosis,
premature birth, low birth weight, small for gestational age
and low APGAR score.
Results: Infants born to mothers with TB exhibited a twofold increased risk of low birth weight (Odds Ratio, OR: 2.51;
95% Confidence Interval, 95%CI: 1.31, 4.81), with an even
higher risk (OR: 3.29; 95%CI: 1.637, 6.612) if active TB was
diagnosed during the index pregnancy. These infants also
had an elevated risk of being small for gestational age
compared to infants born to healthy mothers (OR: 2.48;
95%CI:1.15, 5.39). Furthermore, adverse outcomes were also
more frequently detected among infants of mothers with
pulmonary TB compared to those with extra-pulmonary TB.
Infants born to mothers with PTB were more likely to be born
with low birth weight (OR: 1.60; 95%CI: 1.095, 2.339). No
cases of congenital TB were reported throughout the entire
study period.
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