OBJECTIVE To determine the concentrations of serum lipids and apolipoprotein B (apo-B) in a population of normal full-term and preterm newborns in a city in Southern Brazil, and assess the impact of gestational age and birth weight on these values. METHODS Two hundred and twelve newborns of both genders were studied, 142 of whom were full-term (>37 weeks of gestation) and 70 preterm (<37 week...

OBJECTIVE We investigated the effects of gestational age, birth weight, small for gestational age (SGA), and large for gestational age (LGA) on risk of childhood type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We conducted a population-based cohort study of all singleton live births in Sweden between 1973 and 2009 and a sibling control study. Perinatal data were extracted from the Swedish Medica...

BACKGROUND Being born small for gestational age is associated with later risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as high blood pressure. Promotion of postnatal growth has been proposed to ameliorate these effects. There is evidence in animals and infants born prematurely, however, that promotion of growth by increased postnatal nutrition increases rather than decreases later cardiovascula...

OBJECTIVE To examine the association between household socio-economic status (SES) at birth and poor infant growth such as small for gestational age (SGA) and stunting across two different socio-cultural settings: South Africa and the Philippines. DESIGN Data were from two longitudinal birth cohorts, the Birth to Twenty (Bt20) study in South Africa and the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutriti...

The nutrition of the premature infant poses a critically important challenge to clinicians. Premature infants are a heterogeneous group; maternal status, gestational age, drug intake, respiratory distress, phototherapy, and infection all conspire to make it extremely unlikely that a recommendation for daily intakes will satisfactorily encompass all babies. Clinical and subclinical deficiencies ...

BACKGROUND The optimal age for the introduction of solid foods (weaning) in infants is poorly researched yet may have implications for both short and longer term health. Many parents do not comply with current guidelines. OBJECTIVE To determine and compare the age at weaning in term appropriate size for gestational age (AGA), small for gestational age (SGA), and preterm infants, and factors a...

OBJECTIVE To explore the association between maternal low birth weight (LBW) and adverse perinatal outcomes and to discriminate between confounders and mediating factors of these associations in a population-based birth cohort of Southern Brazil. METHODS Data from 794 female members of the 1982 Pelotas Birth Cohort Study known to have delivered a live-born singleton offspring up to December 2...

The safety and effectiveness of long-term (10-yr) GH treatment in short Japanese children born small for gestational age (SGA) were evaluated based on interim data analysis from a clinical study, including the findings concerning the influence on the onset of puberty and subjects who achieved near adult height (NAH). Sixty-one subjects were analyzed at baseline in this study. Eleven subjects (6...

Accurate definition of small for gestational age (SGA) is essential for antenatal as well as postnatal care. SGA is associated with significant antenatal and postnatal pathology. The term, however, includes constitutional smallness, and it is essential to adjust for physiological variation in order to identify those babies who are pathologically small. Maternal height, weight, parity, ethnic or...

PURPOSE Various factors may affect intrauterine foetal growth, amongst which conditions such as epilepsy and the use of anti-epileptic drugs (AED) may play a role. This study investigated intrauterine growth of foetuses in women with epilepsy, as compared with controls, and explored whether intrauterine growth was affected by prenatal exposure to AED. METHOD Data were obtained from prospectiv...