Women with congenital heart disease are more likely to have been born preterm

A survey of women born in Sweden has revealed three significant links between being born prematurely and having an inborn heart defect, what doctors call congenital heart disease (CHD). First, women with CHD were more likely to have been born preterm or small-for-gestational age (SGA) than women without CHD. Secondly, when women with CHD have children, their babies are more likely to have a congenital malformation than children of unaffected women. They are also more prone to give birth to children preterm or SGA and their babies are more often delivered by cesarean section. And thirdly, mothers of women with CHD were more often single/unmarried or older than mothers whose children did not have heart disease. Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica