Abstract

PREGNANCY, PEPTIC ULCER AND GERD: A TIME SERIES OF CORRELATION

Abstract

Background/ introduction: It is widely agreed that 1. During pregnancy, incidence/ prevalence of peptic ulcer/ erosion at esophagus/ stomach/ duodenum as well as H pylori infection is minimal 2. Relapse may occur by the term end. But past studies are not in the same cohort (same ladies are not followed with and without pregnancy) Objectives: to study the effect of pregnancy on incidence/ prevalence of peptic ulcer/ erosion at esophagus/ stomach/ duodenum as well as H pylori infection in the same cohort of ladies. Materials and methods : 11 ladies known for chronic peptic ulcer during non-pregnant state were followed throughout pregnancy for estimates of pathology. Endoscopy (for ulceration/ erosion) and breath urease test (for H pylori; supportive by fecal Hp antibody verification) were used at baseline (pre-pregnant), and 4 times during pregnancy (2, 4, 6, 8 months). Statistics: Normaquant and PPCC (for testing normality of data), IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 - August 2013 (for Spearman’s rank correlation), Excel (MS window 2008) for graph. Results : Spearman’s test result : r=-0.0086 df=1022 z=-0.2741 p=0.3920; Significant reduction of incidence/ prevalence of peptic ulcer/ erosion at esophagus/ stomach/ duodenum as well as H pylori infection was seen during pregnancy but relapse/ rise was seen towards term end. Discussion and conclusion: Pregnant ladies known to have GIT erosive pathologies require maximal concern around Puerperium.

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