BACKGROUND Weight and length at birth (which represent fetal growth) and weight and length or height gain during childhood (which potentially represent catch-up growth) may be related to later health outcomes. However, methods for the assessment of such relations are complex and underdeveloped. OBJECTIVES We aimed to describe childhood weight and length or height trajectories and to relate th...

Recent advances in cross-disciplinary studies linking architecture and neuroscience have revealed that much of the built environment for health-care delivery may actually impair rather than improve health outcomes by disrupting effective communication and increasing patient and staff stress. This is also true for maternity care provision, where it is suggested that the design of the environment...

This research study examines the impact of the level of state tax code progressivity on selected children's health outcomes. Specifically, it examines the degree to which a state's tax code ranking along the progressive-regressive continuum relates to percentage of low birthweight babies, infant and child mortality rates, and percentage of uninsured children. Using data merged from a number of ...

Prenatal exposure to the disruptions caused by the Korean War (1950-1953) negatively affected the individual socioeconomic and health outcomes at older ages. The educational attainment, labor market performance, and other socioeconomic outcomes of the subjects of the 1951 birth cohort, who were in utero during the worst time of the war, were significantly lower in 1990 and in 2000. The results ...

The Mater-University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy (MUSP) and its outcomes began in 1981 with data collected on 7223 pregnant woman-child pairs (6753 mothers, of whom 520 had 2 study children, less 50 who had multiple births). These women, and their children, were initially followed for up to 21 years. Since then there have been additional follow-ups of the mothers (27 years) and their child...

Age at menopause is associated with a variety of health outcomes. Menstrual histories, both as markers of physiologic function and through their potential association with age at menopause, have also been investigated for their links to health outcomes. This study used data from a cohort of women from the United States who provided prospectively recorded data on their menstrual cycles for many ...

BACKGROUND Maternal educational attainment has been associated with birth outcomes among adult mothers. However, limited research explores whether academic performance and educational aspiration influence birth outcomes among adolescent mothers. METHODS Data from Waves I and IV of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) were used. Adolescent girls whose first pregnan...

BACKGROUND Most previous studies on the effect of paternal age have focused on the association of advanced paternal age with congenital anomalies. The objective of this study was to determine whether paternal age is associated with the risk of adverse birth outcomes, independent of maternal confounders. METHODS We carried out a retrospective cohort study of 2 614 966 live singletons born to m...

This study examines whether higher state cigarette taxes can be used to improve birth outcomes. Data on the outcomes of interest are taken from the 1989–1992 Natality Detail files, generating a sample of roughly 10.5 million births. The results suggest that smoking participation among pregnant women declines and average birth weights rise when excise taxes are increased. These results can be us...

CONTEXT All over the the world, preterm birth is a major cause of death and important neurodevelopmental disorders. Approximately 9.6% (12.9 million) births worldwide are preterm. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION In this review, databases such as PubMed, EMBASE, ISI, Scopus, Google Scholar and Iranian databases including Iranmedex, and SID were researched to review relevant literature. A comprehensive se...