Pregnancy outcomes in women with liver disease: Is pregnancy safe? A cross-sectional study

There is evidence suggesting that the pregnancy outcome may be affected by some medical conditions, such as liver diseases.

The present study aimed to investigate the prevalence of liver disease and its outcomes in pregnant women referred to antenatal clinic in the hospital.

In this cross-sectional study, all pregnant women with abnormal liver function test attending antenatal clinic affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences were recruited from August 2017 to July 2018. All participants were followed-up until delivery with respect to the maternal and neonatal outcome.

Of a total of 7,121 pregnant women recruited in the study, 110 (1.58%) women were detected with a liver disease; of these, 105 women were diagnosed with pregnancy-specific liver diseases, including HELLP syndrome (10.9%), preeclampsia (50.98%), partial HELLP (0.9%), eclampsia (0.9%), acute fatty liver (9.1%), intra-hepatic cholestasis 25 (22.7%), and 5 women the non-pregnancy-specific liver disease, including Liver transplantation (2.7 %), and Autoimmune hepatitis (1.8 %). Prevalence of the premature birth was 64.5% in pregnancy-specific liver disease, but no premature birth was detected in cases with liver transplantation. We found that neonatal mortality was significantly associated with neonatal prematurity (p = 0.013), IUGR (p < 0.001), placental pathology (p = 0.04), we had no maternal mortality.

Liver disease is not uncommon in pregnancy. This study demonstrated that pregnancy is safe in women with liver disease.