Pregnancy in Times of War: What Are the Fallouts? A Review

Abstract

The beginning of the conflict in Ukraine has reminded Europeans the many and diverse consequences of armed conflicts. Indeed, the ever more sophisticated conflicts have led to the diffusion of numerous chemicals whose consequences spread even after the end of the war. We present through this paper a review of the consequences on pregnancies of the major conflicts that took place since the end of World War II. MEDLINE, Web of science, and Embase were screened for articles linking perinatal death or birth defects to wartime. A total of 50 papers treating of 8 countries and 4 major and medically documented conflicts were included in the final analysis. An increase in birth defects and perinatal death during and after the end of the conflicts was reported through all the conflicts analyzed. While more data are needed to conclude, maternal fetal medicine specialists ought to be wary when dealing with exposed populations.