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Birth Month (birth + month)
Selected AbstractsPulmonary sequelae in long-term survivors of bronchopulmonary dysplasiaPEDIATRICS INTERNATIONAL, Issue 6 2000Daniel Kwok-Keung Ng AbstractBackground: Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a common problem in premature babies. Long-term sequelae are the main concerns. Methods: A retrospective review of all BPD children born in Queen Mary Hospital, a teaching hospital of the University of Hong Kong, from January 1987 to December 1995 was conducted. Children with cerebral palsy, immunodeficiency, congenital heart disorders, renal or liver failure were excluded from analysis. Chest radiography (CXR), electrocardiogram (ECG) and pulse oximetry were routinely performed. Results: Fifty-five children completed the study. The female to male ratio was 1 : 1.1. The mean gestational age was 28 weeks. Twenty-five children were born with a birthweight of less than 1001 g. Mean age at assessment was 5.4 years. Twenty-four children (44%) demonstrated signs or symptoms of current asthma. Only seven children managed to perform the spirometry satisfactorily. One child had low forced vital capacity and one had hyperresponsive airway. The only risk factor found to be associated with current asthma was the birth month, with those children born early in the year at higher risk of developing current asthma. Seventeen of 48 children (35%) had a bodyweight below the third percentile at the corrected age of 1 year. Eleven of these seventeen children (65%) demonstrated catch-up growth at assessment. Abnormal CXR was found in 25 of 40 children (63%). All had normal pulse oximetry and ECG. Conclusions: Bronchopulmonary dysplasia children had a significantly higher risk than the general population of developing current asthma (odds ratio 4.7; 95% confidence interval 3.4,6.5; P<0.0001). The importance of birth month suggests that early life experience is important in the pathogenesis of asthma, even in BPD children. The long-term growth of BPD children was much better than previously reported. [source] Strong association between birth month and reproductive performance of Vietnamese womenAMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Issue 1 2009Susanne Huber Epidemiological studies on premodern and modern Western societies indicate that birth season may influence female reproduction. Nothing is known, however, about this effect in developing economies. Many of the latter are characterised by tropical climates with a rainy season associated with lower food availability and a greater prevalence of infectious diseases. We therefore predict that an association between birth month and reproductive output, if it exists, should be related to the rainy season. To test this prediction, we analysed census data of Vietnam obtained from IPUMS-International (Vietnam 1999 Population and Housing Census). Based on 493,853 women born between 1950 and 1977 and thus aged 22 to 49 years, we found that the time series of mean offspring count per month of birth has a highly significant period of 12 months (power = 46.871, P < 0.00001). Our results further indicate that the 12-month periodic signal has a maximum in July and a minimum in January. Accordingly, the peak corresponds to birth during the rainy season, the low if the third pregnancy month concurs with the rainy season. The month of birth is therefore clearly associated with the later reproductive performance of Vietnamese women, strongly supporting the assumption that environmental and maternal conditions during early development exert long-term effects on reproductive functioning. Provided the rainy season adversely affects developmental processes due to inadequate food and/or high infection risk, the association reported here points to a critical period of reproductive development during early pregnancy. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2009. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Register data suggest lower intelligence in men born the year after flu pandemic,ANNALS OF NEUROLOGY, Issue 3 2009Willy Eriksen MD Objective To test the hypothesis that prenatal exposure to the Hong Kong flu, an influenza pandemic that haunted Europe during winter 1969 to 1970, was associated with reduced intelligence in adulthood. Methods Data from the Medical Birth Register of Norway were linked with register data from the National Conscript Service. The sample comprised all registered boys born alive in single birth after 37 to 43 weeks' gestation during 1967 to 1973 (n = 205,634). Intelligence test scores, recorded at military conscription, were available for 182,913 individuals. Results The mean intelligence score increased from one birth year to another, except for a downturn in 1970. The birth year 1970 was inversely associated with intelligence score (,0.03 standard deviation [SD]; p < 0.001) after adjustments for birth characteristics, parental characteristics, and the trend of increasing scores over the 7 birth years. Analyses with the sample stratified by birth month showed that the inverse association between the birth year 1970 and intelligence score was significant only among men born in July (,0.04 SD; p = 0.049), August (,0.05 SD; p = 0.013), September (,0.09 SD; p < 0.001), and October (,0.06 SD; p = 0.008). Thus, the intelligence scores of the men born 6 to 9 months after the epidemic were lower than the mean values for the men born in the same months a few years before or after. Interpretation Early prenatal exposure to the Hong Kong flu may have interfered with fetal cerebral development and caused reduced intelligence in adulthood. Ann Neurol 2009;66:284,289 [source] | ||||||||||