Tetanus toxoid and congenital abnormalities

Objective: To study the human teratogenic potential of tetanus vaccination during pregnancy. Methods: Pair analysis of cases with congenital abnormali ties and matched healthy controls was performed in the large population-bas ed dataset of the Hungarian Case-Control Surveillance of Congenital Abnorma lities, 1980-1994. Results: Of 35 727 pregnant women who had babies without any defects in the study period (control group), 33 (0.09%) were vaccinate d with tetanus. Of 21563 pregnant women who had offspring with congenital a bnormalities, 25 (0.12%) had tetanus vaccination. This difference was not s ignificant (P = 0.39). The case-control pair analysis confirmed the safety of tetanus vaccination during pregnancy, particularly in the second and thi rd months of gestation, i.e. during the critical period for congenital abno rmalities. Conclusion: Tetanus vaccination during pregnancy appears not be teratogenic to the fetus. Thus, there is no contraindication, if the use of tetanus toroid is necessary during pregnancy. (C) 1999 International Feder ation of Gynecology and Obstetrics.