Association of microtia with maternal obesity and periconceptional folic acid use

✍ Scribed by Chen Ma; Suzan L. Carmichael; Angela E. Scheuerle; Mark A. Canfield; Gary M. Shaw

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 94 KB
• Volume: 152A
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1552-4825
• DOI: 10.1002/ajmg.a.33694

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The study objective was to examine the association of microtia with maternal intake of folic‐acid‐containing supplements and obesity. The study data included deliveries from 1997 to 2005 from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study. Non‐syndromic cases of microtia were compared to non‐malformed, population‐based liveborn control infants, by estimating adjusted odds ratios (AORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) from logistic regression models that included maternal race/ethnicity, education, and study site. Maternal obesity was only weakly associated with microtia. Maternal periconceptional intake of folic‐acid‐containing vitamin supplements reduced the risk for microtia, but only among non‐obese women (OR: 0.63; 95% CI: 0.44–0.91). The reduced risk was stronger when analyses were restricted to isolated cases (OR: 0.51; 95% CI: 0.34–0.77), and it was independent of the level of maternal dietary folate intake. Adjusting for maternal race/ethnicity did not reveal alternative interpretations of this association. This analysis suggests that maternal periconceptional intake of folic‐acid‐containing supplements may provide protection from microtia for non‐obese women. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.