BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Despite growing interest in the role of maternal psychosocial stress as a determinant of preterm birth, no existing work has examined the relation between maternal stress and post-term birth (≥42 weeks). We hypothesize that prolonging gestation past term may represent an adaptive strategy to a suboptimal environment. METHODOLOGY We examined the relationship between e...

  Background :Preterm birth is a significant global health problem with serious short- and long-term consequences. This study examined the long term effects of preterm birth on vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs) among preschool-aged children.   Methods : Thirty-one children with preterm and 20 children with term birth histories aged 5.5 to 6.5 years were studied. Each child underwent...

Early term birth is defined as birth at 37 or 38 weeks gestation. While infants born early term are not considered premature, the medical literature suggests that they have an increased risk of serious adverse health outcomes compared to infants born at term (39 or 40 weeks). Despite these known harms, we document a rise in early term births in the United States from 1989 to the mid-2000s, foll...

BACKGROUND Despite widespread cultural vilification, lactation-pregnancy overlap remains common. Its actual adverse effects remain uncertain. PURPOSE This study compared rates of success in reaching full-term delivery and newborn birth weights between two groups of multiparous pregnant women: those who breast-fed during pregnancy and those who did not. METHODS This was a comparative study c...

OBJECTIVES To investigate whether risk factors for preterm (<37 weeks gestation) and early-term birth (37 and 38 weeks gestation) are similar. DESIGN Nationally representative cross-sectional study of births. SETTING France in 2010. PARTICIPANTS Live singleton births (n=14 326). PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES Preterm and early-term birth rates overall and by mode of delivery (sp...

An accurate assessment of gestational age is vital to population-based research and surveillance in maternal and infant health. However, the quality of gestational age measurements derived from birth certificates has been in question. Using the 2002 US public-use natality file, the authors examined the agreement between estimates of gestational age based on the last menstrual period (LMP) and c...

BACKGROUND Perinatal mortality is an important indicator of health. European comparisons of perinatal mortality show an unfavourable position for the Netherlands. Our objective was to study regional variation in perinatal mortality within the Netherlands and to identify possible explanatory factors for the found differences. METHODS Our study population comprised of all singleton births (904,...

BACKGROUND Preterm infants are at a higher risk of hospitalisation following discharge from the hospital after birth. The reasons for rehospitalisation and the association with gestational age are not well understood. METHODS This was a retrospective birth cohort study of all live, singleton infants born in Western Australia between 1st January 1980 and 31st December 2010, followed to 18 year...