The major objective of our studies in the last decade was a systematic
analysis of maternal diseases during pregnancy to reveal their possible
adverse effects on birth outcomes. The two most important factors of
infant mortality were parti- larly analyzed: structural birth defects,
known as congenital abnormalities (CAs) and preterm birth (PB). In
general the objectives of scienti c studies might be either to test a
new hypothesis or to con rm or confront previously published results.
However, less frequently the authors/scientists have personal
motivations determined by their professional activities. The authors of
this book are practicing physicians and genetic epidemiologist who are
mainly interested in the following three practical questions: 1. The
possible adverse effects of pharmaceutical products. The possible t-
atogenic potential of about 170 drugs has been evaluated very thoroughly
using the data set of the Hungarian Case-Control Surveillance of
Congenital Abnormalities (HCCSCA) in the last 50 years. These drugs were
used to treat maternal diseases and the ndings of our population-based
case-control studies will be cited in this book and are shown in the
Appendix at the end of the book. However, our long experiences showed
two problems in the drug teratology. In general the evaluation of
clinical doses of these drugs is a particularly dif- cult challenge due
to the modi cation effects of confounders. This problem motivated one of
the authors to establish a new model of disaster epidemiology.
