The effect of maternal socio‐economic status throughout the lifespan on infant birthweight
- 8 June 2007
- journal article
- Published by Wiley in Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology
- Vol. 21 (4), 310-318
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-3016.2007.00821.x
Abstract
Astone NM, Misra D, Lynch C. The effect of maternal socio-economic status throughout the lifespan on infant birthweight. Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology 2007; 21: 310–318. The objective of this study was to investigate whether maternal socio-economic status during childhood and at the time of pregnancy each have unique associations with infant birthweight when biological determinants of birthweight are controlled. The data are from a three-generation study which contains information on the mothers and grandmothers of 987 singleton infants, collected over a period of 25 years. We used simple and multivariable regression to assess the association between indicators of a woman's socio-economic status and her offspring's birthweight. Women who grew up in poor households had smaller babies than those who did not, and a unit increase in the income/needs ratio (analogous to the poverty index), in non-poor households only, was associated with a 185 g [95% CI 70, 200] increase in infant birthweight. Maternal age at the index infant's birth had a positive association with birthweight that diminished as women reached their mid-twenties. Among mothers with low education, high grandmaternal education was associated with a 181 g [95% CI 71, 292] increase in infant birthweight, while high grandmaternal education had no effect among infants whose mothers were relatively well-educated. This interaction between grandmaternal and maternal education is consistent with claims that cumulative stress is an important mechanism connecting maternal socio-economic status and infant healthKeywords
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