Maternal autoimmune thyroiditis and congenital malformations of newborns in a cohort of Slovak women

BACKGROUND: Aim of this study was to compare the thyroidal status of mothers to children with and without congenital malformations (CM). METHODS: We examined 129 mothers of newborns with CM and 228 mothers without CM. The assessment included particular history, physical examination, thyroid ultrasonography, fT4, TSH, and anti-TPO measurement of mothers and comparison to birth proportions of newborns. RESULTS: The total volume of the thyroid gland and anti-TPO levels were significantly higher in mothers of the group with CM (p < 0.001 and p < 0.01, respectively). The birth weight and length were significantly lower in the group with congenital malformation when compared to controls (p < 0.0001 and p < 0.001, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Based on the results of our study, we suggest that thyroid diseases of a mother might participate in congenital malformations of their newborn, although no direct association between thyroid autoantibodies and congentital malformations has been described as of yet.