Occurrence of antinuclear antibodies in an unselected pregnancy population.

The occurrence of antinuclear antibodies (ANA) in an unselected population of pregnant women was studied by an indirect immunofluorescence method. Six women out of 116 were ANA-positive (5.2%), 2 of them having a moderately high titre (1:160 and 1:320) and 1 complement-fixing ANA. The antigenic specificity of ANA was anti-single-stranded DNA in 2 cases and RNAase-sensitive anti-extractable nuclear antigen in 1 case. Two of the ANA-positive women had pre-eclampsia laevis and 1 had a premature delivery. None of the infants of the ANA-positive women had symptoms of connective tissue disease. The occurrence of ANA among pregnant women was not significantly higher than among 70 non-pregnant female control subjects (7.1%).