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American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 132, No. 3: 531-539
Copyright © 1990 by The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health

research-article

INCREASED POSTPERINATAL CHILD MORTALITY AMONG CHILDREN OF MOTHERS EXPOSED TO MEASLES DURING PREGNANCY

PETER AABY, EVA SEIM2, KIM KNUDSEN2, JETTE BUKH1, IDA MARIA LISSE3 and MARIA CLOTILDE DA SILVA4

1Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen Copenhagen, Denmark
2Statistical Research Unit, University of Copenhagen Copenhagen, Denmark
3Department of Pathology, Hvidovre Hospital, University of Copenhagen Copenhagen, Denmark
4Department of Maternal and Child Health, Ministry of Health Bissau, Guinea-Bissau

Reprint requests to Dr. Peter Aaby, Institute of Anthropology, Frederiksholms Kanal 4, DK-1220 Copenhagen K, Denmark

Previous studies of an urban and a rural epidemic in Guinea-Bissau have shown perinatal mortality to be statistically significantly higher among children whose mothers have been exposed to measles during pregnancy. After the epidemic in 1979 in Bandim, a district in the capital of Guinea-Bissau, such children also had a postperinatal childhood mortality risk (7 days to 5 years of age) of 0.229, compared with 0.134 for other children in the community. None of the mothers had developed clinical measles. In a Cox regression analysis adjusting for known background factors, the mortality hazard ratio between the exposed and the controls was found to be 2.0 (95% confidence interval 1.1–3.8). After a small rural measles epidemic in Quinhamel in 1983, the mortality hazard ratio for children of mothers exposed during pregnancy compared with controls was 1.7 (95% confidence interval 0.6–4.6). Exposure to measles or some concomitantly transmitted pathogen during fetal life may contribute to the high childhood mortality found in many developing countries.

measles; measles vaccine; mortality; pregnancy


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