Caesarean Delivery and Risk of Chronic Inflammatory Diseases (Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Coeliac Disease, and Diabetes Mellitus): A Population Based Registry Study of 2,699,479 Births in Denmark During 1973–2016

Figures & data

Table 1 Counts and Proportions of Chronic Inflammatory Diseases by Mode of Delivery

	Full Period 1973–2016 (N=2,672,708 Births)
	Vaginal Delivery	CS
Total	2,271,913 (85.0%)	400,795 (15.0%)
DM	20,936 (87.7%)	2,932 (12.3%)
RA	9,075 (86.7%)	1,395 (13.3%)
CD	6,085 (85.3%)	1,047 (14.7%)
Crohn’s disease	8,051 (87.9%)	1,104 (12.1%)
Ulcerative colitis	11,436 (88.9%)	1,428 (11.1%)
IBD (Crohn’s disease + ulcerative colitis)	17,293 (88.5%)	2,240 (11.5%)
Combined (at least one)	51,926 (87.5%)	7,405 (12.5%)
DM & RA	225 (89.6%)	26 (10.4%)
DM & CD	400 (83.2%)	81 (16.8%)
DM & IBD	383 (89.1%)	47 (10.9%)
RA & CD	58 (87.9%)	8 (12.1%)
RA & IBD	227 (91.5%)	21 (8.5%)
CD & IBD	202 (86.7%)	31 (13.3%)
Dead	25,067 (79.7%)	6,392 (20.3%)
Emigrated	73,661 (87.4%)	10,661 (12.6%)

Notes: The disease combinations do not sum up to the “Combined” count, as 35 persons in the full cohort experienced more than two of the diseases.

Abbreviations: CD, Coeliac disease; CS, Caesarean section; DM, Diabetes mellitus; IBD, Inflammatory bowel disease; RA, Rheumatoid arthritis.

Figure 1 Kaplan Meier plots for age at diagnosis of outcome diseases by mode of delivery for (A) Diabetes, (B) Arthritis, (C) Coeliac Disease, (D) Inflammatory Bowel Disease, and (E) Combined.

Figure 2 Forest plot of HR from Cox regressions (95% CIs) for associations between caesarean section and development of diabetes, arthritis, coeliac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and combined for the combined cohort as well as by sex.