Maternal socioeconomic status and the risk of congenital heart defects in offspring: a meta-analysis of 33 studies.

Background: We conducted this meta-analysis to address the open question of a possible association between maternal socioeconomic status and congenital heart defects (CHDs).

Methods: We searched MEDLINE and EMBASE from their inception to January 1, 2014 for case-control and cohort studies that assessed the association between maternal socioeconomic status and the risk of CHDs. Study-specific relative risk estimates were polled according to random-effect or fixed-effect models.

Results: From 3343 references, a total of 31 case-control studies and 2 cohort studies were enrolled in this meta-analysis, including more than 50,000 cases. We observed that maternal educational attainment, family income and maternal occupation were negatively associated with an 11% (pooled RR = 1.11, 95% CI: 1.03, 1.21), 5% (pooled RR = 1.05, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.09) and 51% (pooled RR = 1.51, 95% CI: 1.02, 2.24) increased risk of CHDs, respectively. In a subgroup analysis by geographic region, the results were inconsistent for the European region (RR = 1.29, 95% CI: 0.99-1.69) and USA/Canada region (RR = 1.06, 95% CI: 0.97, 1.16) in maternal educational attainment.

Conclusion: In summary, this meta-analysis suggests that a lower degree of maternal socioeconomic status is modestly associated with an increased risk of CHDs. However, further investigations are needed to confirm the association.