Maternal non-diagnosed celiac disease and risk of low birth weight

Aims: in order to know the prevalence of celiac disease in mothers with newborns weighing less or more than 2,500 g at birth we carried out a case-control study. Patients: mothers of newborns in Cabuenes Hospital. Case group: Mothers with babies weighing less than 2,500 g at birth. Controls: Mothers with babies weighing more than 2,500 g at birth. One control for each case. Methods: epidemiological and clinical interviews, and celiac disease serology. Results: we studied 1103 women: 577 cases and 526 con trols. We diagnosed 4 celiac disease cases, 2 in the case group and 2 in the control group. These 4 mothers had 3 term new borns (1 case in each 235 mothers; prevalence 0.42%) and 1 preterm newborn (1 case in each 389 mothers; prevalence 0.26%). Two cases had babies with adequate birth weight for their gestational age (1 case in each 419 mothers; prevalence 0.24%) and two cases had babies with low birth weight for their gestation al age (1 in each 132 mothers; prevalence 0.75%). The odds ratio for low birth weight was 0.91 (95% CI: 0.12-6.49), the odds ratio for preterm birth was 0.61 (95% CI: 0.06-5.89), ad the odds ratio for low birth weight for gestational age was 3.19 (95% CI: 0.4422.79). Conclusions: the prevalence of celiac disease in fertile women in our geographic area was 0.36% (1 case in each 275 mothers), and no differences were found between study groups.