British researchers said on Thursday a once-used practice of giving antibiotics to some women at risk of premature birth may have increased the odds their children will develop cerebral palsy and other problems.
The study looked at women at risk of premature labor who had no signs of infection. Doctors now recommend antibiotics only for women whose waters have broken prematurely or have an obvious infection.
Sara Kenyon, a researcher at the University of Leicester who led the study, said the findings reaffirm that doctors should not use antibiotics for premature labor when the mother’s water is intact and if there is no infection.
The researchers believe cerebral palsy is unlikely to be a direct effect of the antibiotic but rather due to factors involved in prolonging a pregnancy that might otherwise have delivered early.
“We don’t think it is the antibiotics themselves but rather the situation the antibiotics are given in,” she said. “These findings mean doctors do not need to give antibiotics if a woman’s water hasn’t broken unless she has an infection.”
Kenyon said smoking, alcohol use and weight problems can increase the chances of premature labor. While it was known children born prematurely are more prone to functional problems later in life, the link to cerebral palsy was unexpected.
The researchers followed up 9,000 children from the original trial at age 7 and used a health questionnaire and national school results to gauge the children’s health.
Data showed that children whose mothers were given the antibiotic erythromycin had an 18 percent higher risk of mainly mild functional problems that also included struggles with day-to-day problem solving compared to those whose mothers did not receive the drug.
The other antibiotic, co-amoxiclav, did not appear to raise such risk.
The researchers wrote in the report that the risk of cerebral palsy was increased by either anti-biotic, although the overall risk of this condition was low.
But for women whose water did not break and who got both antibiotics together, the chance their children would develop cerebral palsy nearly tripled.
However, the overall risk was low and researchers do not know why the combination of antibiotics and an intact membrane in women whose water did not burst appeared to affect some children.
Cerebral palsy can cause physical impairments and mobility problems and results from the failure of a part of the brain to develop before birth or in early childhood or brain damage and affects one in 400 births.
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