Prepregnant reproductive risk and subsequent birth outcome among Scandinavian parous women
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5324/nje.v7i1.352Abstract
SUMMARY
This study examined the impact of maternal prepregnant stature, smoking, and past reproductive characteristics
on gestational length, birthweight, weight-for-gestation, and crown heel length. Analyses were based
on 5722 para one and two Caucasian women in Trondheim and Bergen (Norway) and Uppsala (Sweden)
who had a singleton pregnancy and who were interviewed before 20 completed weeks of gestation. Data
included information about previous induced and spontaneous abortions, prepregnant weight and height,
smoking, course and outcome of previous pregnancies with special reference to preterm and low birthweight
(LBW) births, and perinatal deaths. Number of adverse outcome predictors was counted for each woman and
birth outcomes were analysed by that number. Separate univariate and multivariate analyses examined the
impact of the individual risk characteristics. Mean birthweight, crown heel length, and gestational length
were significantly related to number of prepregnant risk characteristics with a dose response decrease from
3750 g, 51.2 cm, and 39.6 weeks to 2955 g, 47.7 cm, and 37.7 weeks for women with zero and six risk
factors, respectively. Both univariate and multivariate analyses showed that prepregnant weight, a previous
LBW birth, and cigarette smoking around conception were the strongest birthweight predictors with a mean
BW reduction of 424 g (95% CI 373, 475 g) and 130 g (95% CI 112, 157 g) for a previous LBW birth and
10 cigarettes per day, respectively. As 88% of birthweight variation was left unexplained by these
prepregnancy characteristics, it may be concluded that the major risk factors are either unknown or that main
predictors of birthweight, such as life style factors, exert their effect
during gestation, or both.
Key words: Pregnancy, risk factor, parous women, birth outcome
Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Norsk Epidemiologi licenses all content of the journal under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence. This means, among other things, that anyone is free to copy and distribute the content, as long as they give proper credit to the author(s) and the journal. For further information, see Creative Commons website for human readable or lawyer readable versions.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
