Maternal Socioeconomic Status and the Risk of Congenital Heart Defects in Offspring: A Meta-Analysis of 33 Studies

Background: We conducted this meta-analysis to address the open question of a possible association between maternal socioeconomic status and congenital heart defects (CHDs). Methods: We searched MEDLINE and EMBASE from their inception to January 1, 2014 for case-control and cohort studies that assessed the association between maternal socioeconomic status and the risk of CHDs. Study-specific relative risk estimates were polled according to random-effect or fixed-effect models. Results: From 3343 references, a total of 31 case-control studies and 2 cohort studies were enrolled in this meta-analysis, including more than 50,000 cases. We observed that maternal educational attainment, family income and materna