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. 2019 Aug 26;14(8):e0221725.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0221725. eCollection 2019.

Awareness of congenital cytomegalovirus and acceptance of maternal and newborn screening

Katie J Tastad  1 , Mark R Schleiss  2 , Sara M Lammert  1 , Nicole E Basta  1
Affiliations

Awareness of congenital cytomegalovirus and acceptance of maternal and newborn screening

Katie J Tastad et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Objectives: To assess awareness of cytomegalovirus (CMV); attitudes towards screening; and frequency of behaviors that could increase the risk of prenatal infection.

Methods: We conducted a survey among 726 women at the 2017 Minnesota State Fair. Minnesota residents aged 18-44 were eligible if they had never been pregnant or had been pregnant within the past 10 years. We compared responses between never-pregnant and recently-pregnant women.

Results: Only 20% of study participants had previously heard of CMV. Remarkably, recently-pregnant women were no more likely to be aware of CMV than never-pregnant women after adjusting for potential confounders. After receiving information about CMV, nearly all participants indicated they believed prenatal (96%) or newborn (96%) screening should be offered.

Conclusions: Although baseline awareness of CMV was low (even among recently-pregnant women), after learning more about the risks, women supported screening. Several states have passed or proposed legislation promoting CMV education and/or screening programs. We identified important gaps in knowledge about CMV among women who may benefit from education about how to reduce their risk of exposure and who may need to decide whether they would be willing to screen for CMV in the future.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Awareness of diseases and conditions by pregnancy history.
* Statistically significant differences between those recently-pregnant (grey bars) and those never-pregnant (blue bars) (chi-square test p-value < 0.05). + Jolivirus is a fictitious virus included to assess validity of survey responses.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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