PurposeThe purpose of MOthers and BAbies in Norway and Denmark cerebral palsy (MOBAND-CP) was to study CP aetiology in a prospective design.ParticipantsMOBAND-CP is a cohort of more than 210 000 ...children, created as a collaboration between the world's two largest pregnancy cohorts—the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort study (MoBa) and the Danish National Birth Cohort. MOBAND-CP includes maternal interview/questionnaire data collected during pregnancy and follow-up, plus linked information from national health registries.Findings to dateInitial harmonisation of data from the 2 cohorts has created 140 variables for children and their mothers. In the MOBAND-CP cohort, 438 children with CP have been identified through record linkage with validated national registries, providing by far the largest such sample with prospectively collected detailed pregnancy data. Several studies investigating various hypotheses regarding CP aetiology are currently on-going.Future plansAdditional data can be harmonised as necessary to meet requirements of new projects. Biological specimens collected during pregnancy and at delivery are potentially available for assay, as are results from assays conducted on these specimens for other projects. The study size allows consideration of CP subtypes, which is rare in aetiological studies of CP. In addition, MOBAND-CP provides a platform within the context of a merged birth cohort of exceptional size that could, after appropriate permissions have been sought, be used for cohort and case-cohort studies of other relatively rare health conditions of infants and children.
Seizures are often found in children with fetal alcohol syndrome, but it is not known whether binge drinking during pregnancy by nonalcoholic women is associated with an increased risk of seizure ...disorders in children. The authors conducted a population-based cohort study of 80,526 liveborn singletons in the Danish National Birth Cohort (1996–2002). Information on maternal binge drinking (intake of ≥5 drinks on a single occasion) was collected in 2 computer-assisted telephone interviews during pregnancy. Children were followed for up to 8 years. Information on neonatal seizures, epilepsy, and febrile seizures was retrieved from the Danish National Hospital Register. Results showed that exposure to binge drinking episodes during pregnancy was not associated with an increased risk of seizure disorders in children, except for those exposed at 11–16 gestational weeks. These children had a 3.15-fold increased risk of neonatal seizures (95% confidence interval: 1.37, 7.25) and a 1.81-fold increased risk of epilepsy (95% confidence interval: 1.13, 2.90). These findings suggest that maternal binge drinking during a specific time period of pregnancy may be associated with an increased risk of specific seizure disorders in the offspring. The results are exploratory, however, and need to be replicated.
BackgroundPreterm birth is the leading cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality and is associated with adverse developmental and long-term health outcomes, including several cardiometabolic risk ...factors and outcomes. However, evidence about the association of preterm birth with later body size derives mainly from studies using birth weight as a proxy of prematurity rather than an actual length of gestation. We investigated the association of gestational age (GA) at birth with body size from infancy through adolescence.Methods and findingsWe conducted a two-stage individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis using data from 253,810 mother-child dyads from 16 general population-based cohort studies in Europe (Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, United Kingdom), North America (Canada), and Australasia (Australia) to estimate the association of GA with body mass index (BMI) and overweight (including obesity) adjusted for the following maternal characteristics as potential confounders: education, height, prepregnancy BMI, ethnic background, parity, smoking during pregnancy, age at child's birth, gestational diabetes and hypertension, and preeclampsia. Pregnancy and birth cohort studies from the LifeCycle and the EUCAN-Connect projects were invited and were eligible for inclusion if they had information on GA and minimum one measurement of BMI between infancy and adolescence. Using a federated analytical tool (DataSHIELD), we fitted linear and logistic regression models in each cohort separately with a complete-case approach and combined the regression estimates and standard errors through random-effects study-level meta-analysis providing an overall effect estimate at early infancy (>0.0 to 0.5 years), late infancy (>0.5 to 2.0 years), early childhood (>2.0 to 5.0 years), mid-childhood (>5.0 to 9.0 years), late childhood (>9.0 to 14.0 years), and adolescence (>14.0 to 19.0 years). GA was positively associated with BMI in the first decade of life, with the greatest increase in mean BMI z-score during early infancy (0.02, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.00; 0.05, p < 0.05) per week of increase in GA, while in adolescence, preterm individuals reached similar levels of BMI (0.00, 95% CI: -0.01; 0.01, p 0.9) as term counterparts. The association between GA and overweight revealed a similar pattern of association with an increase in odds ratio (OR) of overweight from late infancy through mid-childhood (OR 1.01 to 1.02) per week increase in GA. By adolescence, however, GA was slightly negatively associated with the risk of overweight (OR 0.98 95% CI: 0.97; 1.00, p 0.1) per week of increase in GA. Although based on only four cohorts (n = 32,089) that reached the age of adolescence, data suggest that individuals born very preterm may be at increased odds of overweight (OR 1.46 95% CI: 1.03; 2.08, p < 0.05) compared with term counterparts. Findings were consistent across cohorts and sensitivity analyses despite considerable heterogeneity in cohort characteristics. However, residual confounding may be a limitation in this study, while findings may be less generalisable to settings in low- and middle-income countries.ConclusionsThis study based on data from infancy through adolescence from 16 cohort studies found that GA may be important for body size in infancy, but the strength of association attenuates consistently with age. By adolescence, preterm individuals have on average a similar mean BMI to peers born at term.
Preterm birth is the leading cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality and is associated with adverse developmental and long-term health outcomes, including several cardiometabolic risk factors and ...outcomes. However, evidence about the association of preterm birth with later body size derives mainly from studies using birth weight as a proxy of prematurity rather than an actual length of gestation. We investigated the association of gestational age (GA) at birth with body size from infancy through adolescence.
We conducted a two-stage individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis using data from 253,810 mother-child dyads from 16 general population-based cohort studies in Europe (Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, United Kingdom), North America (Canada), and Australasia (Australia) to estimate the association of GA with body mass index (BMI) and overweight (including obesity) adjusted for the following maternal characteristics as potential confounders: education, height, prepregnancy BMI, ethnic background, parity, smoking during pregnancy, age at child's birth, gestational diabetes and hypertension, and preeclampsia. Pregnancy and birth cohort studies from the LifeCycle and the EUCAN-Connect projects were invited and were eligible for inclusion if they had information on GA and minimum one measurement of BMI between infancy and adolescence. Using a federated analytical tool (DataSHIELD), we fitted linear and logistic regression models in each cohort separately with a complete-case approach and combined the regression estimates and standard errors through random-effects study-level meta-analysis providing an overall effect estimate at early infancy (>0.0 to 0.5 years), late infancy (>0.5 to 2.0 years), early childhood (>2.0 to 5.0 years), mid-childhood (>5.0 to 9.0 years), late childhood (>9.0 to 14.0 years), and adolescence (>14.0 to 19.0 years). GA was positively associated with BMI in the first decade of life, with the greatest increase in mean BMI z-score during early infancy (0.02, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.00; 0.05, p < 0.05) per week of increase in GA, while in adolescence, preterm individuals reached similar levels of BMI (0.00, 95% CI: -0.01; 0.01, p 0.9) as term counterparts. The association between GA and overweight revealed a similar pattern of association with an increase in odds ratio (OR) of overweight from late infancy through mid-childhood (OR 1.01 to 1.02) per week increase in GA. By adolescence, however, GA was slightly negatively associated with the risk of overweight (OR 0.98 95% CI: 0.97; 1.00, p 0.1) per week of increase in GA. Although based on only four cohorts (n = 32,089) that reached the age of adolescence, data suggest that individuals born very preterm may be at increased odds of overweight (OR 1.46 95% CI: 1.03; 2.08, p < 0.05) compared with term counterparts. Findings were consistent across cohorts and sensitivity analyses despite considerable heterogeneity in cohort characteristics. However, residual confounding may be a limitation in this study, while findings may be less generalisable to settings in low- and middle-income countries.
This study based on data from infancy through adolescence from 16 cohort studies found that GA may be important for body size in infancy, but the strength of association attenuates consistently with age. By adolescence, preterm individuals have on average a similar mean BMI to peers born at term.
BACKGROUND Recent studies have suggested gestational weeks 8–14 as a time window of particular importance to the intrauterine development of the male genitalia, and prenatal exposure to alcohol is ...under suspicion as a risk factor for cryptorchidism. We examined if prenatal exposure to alcohol, and especially binge drinking, during the suggested programming window is associated with an increased risk of cryptorchidism. METHODS The authors used data on 41 268 live born singleton boys of mothers who were enrolled into the Danish National Birth Cohort in 1996–2002. During early childhood, 1598 cases of cryptorchidism were identified and 398 of these were orchiopexy verified. Maternal alcohol consumption including number and timing of binge drinking episodes was assessed in two computer-assisted telephone interviews around gestational weeks 17 and 32. Adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) of cryptorchidism were estimated by Cox regression. RESULTS Average weekly alcohol consumption as well as frequency of binge drinking at any time during pregnancy was not associated with risk of cryptorchidism. Binge drinking in gestational weeks 7–15 was associated with a slightly increased risk of cryptorchidism with adjusted HRs between 1.03 and 1.66. CONCLUSION Prenatal exposure to alcohol—measured as average intake as well as frequency and timing of binge drinking—was not associated with cryptorchidism. Our findings, however, do not rule out that binge drinking during the suggested male programming window may increase the risk of cryptorchidism.
A high educational attainment is shown to have a positive effect on second birth rates for Danish one-child mothers during the period 1981-94. We examine whether a time-squeeze is a possible ...explanation: due to the longer enrolment in the educational system, highly educated women have less time at their disposal in order to get the desired number of children. Also, we examine to what extent the partner’s education can explain some of the positive effect. We find no evidence that the positive effect of education is due to a time-squeeze nor to a partner effect.
Background: To examine whether maternal alcohol intake including binge drinking (intake ≥ 5 drinks equivalent to 60g pure ethanol on a single occasion) is associated with autistic spectrum disorders ...(ASD) and infantile autism. Methods: Participants were 80,552 children and their mothers enrolled in the Danish National Birth Cohort from 1996 to 2002. Alcohol consumption was obtained by self-report during pregnancy. Information on ASD was obtained from the Danish Central Psychiatry Register. Follow-up ended February 2008. Data was analysed by means of Cox regression. Results: In total 401 children were diagnosed with ASD and 157 with infantile autism. No association was found between average alcohol consumption and ASD or infantile autism, respectively. For binge drinking, the adjusted hazard ratio (HR) for ASD was 0.72 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.53 to 0.97) among women who binge drank once during pregnancy compared to women who did not binge drink. The corresponding HR for infantile autism was 0.61 (95% CI: 0.36 to 1.02). However, the hazard ratio for ASD was 0.84 (95% CI: 0.51 to 1.36) when restricting the analysis to first-time pregnancies conceived within 6 months of trying. No estimate was made for infantile autism due to low number of cases. No association was seen for more than one binge episode and for the timing of binge drinking. Conclusion: Our findings do not support that a low prenatal alcohol exposure increases the risk of ASD or infantile autism. The lower risk for women who binge drank once during pregnancy is most likely non-causal. Keywords: Pregnancy, alcohol, autistic spectrum disorders, children.
Abstract
Background
An association between education and preterm delivery has been observed in populations across
E
urope, but differences in methodology limit comparability. We performed a direct ...cross‐cohort comparison of educational disparities in preterm delivery based on individual‐level birth cohort data.
Methods
The study included data from 12
E
uropean cohorts from
D
enmark,
E
ngland,
F
rance,
L
ithuania, the
N
etherlands,
N
orway,
I
taly,
P
ortugal, and
S
pain. The cohorts included between 2434 and 99 655 pregnancies. The association between maternal education and preterm delivery (22–36 completed weeks of gestation) was reported as risk ratios, risk differences, and slope indexes of inequality with 95% confidence intervals (
CI
s).
Results
Singleton preterm live delivery proportion varied between 3.7% and 7.5%. There were large variations between the cohorts in the distribution of education and maternal characteristics. Nevertheless, there were similar educational differences in risk of preterm delivery in 8 of the 12 cohorts with slope index of inequality varying between 2.2 95%
CI
1.1, 3.3 and 4.0 95%
CI
1.4, 6.6 excess preterm deliveries per 100 singleton deliveries among the educationally most disadvantaged, and risk ratio between the lowest and highest education category varying from 1.4 95%
CI
1.1, 1.8 to 1.9 95%
CI
1.2, 3.1. No associations were found in the last four cohorts.
Conclusions
Educational disparities in preterm delivery were found all over
E
urope. Despite differences in the distributions of education and preterm delivery, the results were remarkably similar across the cohorts. For those few cohorts that did not follow the pattern, study and country characteristics did not explain the differences.
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