Children born to mothers with chronic inflammatory diseases, who took non-tumor-necrosis-factor (TNF) inhibitor biologics while pregnant, appear to be at low risk of developing serious infections, researchers say.

Canadian researchers examined the risk of serious infections in children born to mothers with chronic inflammatory diseases who took non-TNF inhibitor biologics or tofacitinib during pregnancy.

They compared the results with those for children not exposed to such treatments, as well as with children exposed to TNF inhibitors in utero and reported the results at the American College of Rheumatology scientific meeting in Atlanta, US.

Participants included 16,490 offspring of mothers with either inflammatory bowel disease, psoriatic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis or ankylosing spondylitis receiving non-TNF inhibitor biologics or tofacitinib while pregnant and 164,553 children born to unaffected matched mothers.