Questioning the acceptability of mothers' age as a determinant of passive measles immunity in newborn infants

Maternal Measles Antibodies (MMA) are primarily IgG 1 and are actively transferred through the placenta from mother to fetus. It protects infants from measles during the early critical months of infancy. As with maternal antibodies to other antigens, MMA declines and it is typically absent by the end of the 1st year of life. Several factors like race, parity and age have been put forward as a possible cause of variation of MMA within different populations of the world. Researchers investigated maternal age as a predictor of MMA in newborn infant in Maiduguri. One hundred and eighty mother-infant pairs were enrolled into this study using the Systematic Random Sampling Method between 10th January and 21st March 2010 and tested for MMA. The 92 (51.1 %) of the newborn infants were males and 88 (48.9%) females, giving an approximate male to female ratio of 1.05:1. Maternal measles antibodies were measured using Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) and correlated with maternal age. Significant correlation existed between mean maternal age and mean MMA of newborn infants at birth (r = 0.784, t = 20.89, p = 0.000). Advancing maternal age was associated with increased MMA in newborn infants at birth. © Medwell Journals, 2012.