Seroepidemiology of maternal and childhood pathogen exposure in three European mother-child cohorts

Abstract

Objectives: To describe the epidemiology of common pathogens and risk factors among pregnant women and their children. Methods: In three European population-based birth cohorts, we examined 2213 mother-child pairs, contributing 5036 blood samples from pregnancy to 12 years of age. We measured serum immunoglobulin G levels against polyomaviruses (BKPyV, JCPyV, KIPyV, WUPyV, MCPyV), herpesviruses (Epstein-Barr virus [EBV], cytomegalovirus [CMV], varicella-zoster virus), adenovirus 36, Helicobacter pylori , and Toxoplasma gondii with multiplex serology. Results: Among pregnant women, seroprevalence ranged from 18.7% ( H. pylori ) to 95.7% (EBV); among 4-6-year-old children, seroprevalence ranged from 3.6% ( H. pylori ) to 88.4% (BKPyV). Although most primary infections occurred in the first 4 years of life, some children had primary infections at later ages. Seropositive mothers were more likely to have seropositive children, but an intergenerational decrease in seroprevalence was evident for herpesviruses and H. pylori . There were sizeable differences between countries for H. pylori and T. gondii. Non-western ethnicity mothers and their children were more likely to be infected. Female sex (WUPyV, MCPyV, CMV), breastfeeding (CMV), early daycare attendance (CMV, H. pylori ), and obesity (JCPyV, EBV, Adv-36) were associated with child's seroprevalence. Conclusions: European children acquire common pathogens but often experience first exposure beyond early childhood. Differences are expected between and within countries and across generations. (c) 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Society for Infectious Diseases. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)