Leptospirosis in pregnancy: An unusual and relatively unrecognised cause of intrauterine death in man

Abstract

SummarySummaryA number of specific infections are known to cause intrauterine death in both animals and pregnant women. However amongst these, leptospirosis has seldom been recognised in this context. We describe the case of a 24 year old woman who assisted in a milking parlour on a dairy farm close to London, UK and developed leptospirosis which resulted in intrauterine death. Her initial symptoms were those of a flu like illness and two weeks after the onset of her illness at 23 weeks gestation, an intrauterine foetal death was confirmed by ultrasound. Serology demonstrated a positive IgM for leptospira at 1/160 and a microscopic agglutination antibody titre was positive at 1/5120. The infecting sera was Leptospira hardjo. This case highlights the important consequences of leptospirosis in pregnancy and the risks of contracting the disease from cattle.