Antinuclear autoantibodies in healthy nonpregnant and pregnant women and their offspring

Antinuclear autoantibodies have previously been detected in sera of healthy women although less frequently than in sera of women with autoimmune disorders. The effect of pregnancy on antinuclear autoantibody production in healthy women is as yet debatable. We present four studies in which, by employing the ELISA method, we evaluated the presence of six antinuclear autoantibodies (anti-ds DNA, anti-ss DNA, anti-poly(I), anti-cardiolipin, anti-Sm, and anti-RNP) in the sera of more than 1,000 healthy pregnant and nonpregnant women, including 196 pairs of matched maternal and cord blood sera. In all four studies healthy pregnant women did not demonstrate significantly higher prevalence rates of various serum antinuclear autoantibodies as compared to healthy nonpregnant women. All detected autoantibodies were of the IgM isotype. In only one infant (born to a healthy seronegative mother) was an autoantibody (IgM anti-ss DNA) detected. This may indicate that in certain circumstances the fetus is capable of self-production of autoantibodies.