Birth Weight and Genital Mycoplasmas in Pregnancy

Abstract

To ascertain the relation between mycoplasmas in the cervix and urine of pregnant women and the outcome of pregnancy, 485 patients were studied prospectively in the prenatal clinic of the Boston City Hospital. T-strains were recovered from 384 women who gave birth to babies whose mean birth weight was 202 g (7.1 oz) less than that of the babies of women from whom T-strains were not isolated (p less than 0.003). Mycoplasma hominis, which was often associated with T-strains in cultures of the urine and cervix, was less well linked with low birth weight (p equal to 0.054).