BACKGROUND Although immigrants to the United States are usually ethnic minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged, foreign-born women generally have lower rates of low birth weight infants than do US-born women. OBJECTIVE To measure the relationship between maternal birthplace, ethnicity, and low birth weight infants. DESIGN Retrospective cohort study of birth certificate data. SETTIN...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND No large scale studies on breastfeeding onset patterns have been carried out in Spain. This work aims to explore the prevalence and the risk factors for not initiating breastfeeding in hospitals from Catalonia (CAT) and Valencia (V), two regions accounting approximately for 30% of the annual births in Spain. METHODS The prevalence of not initiating breastfeeding was c...

This retrospective cohort study evaluated adverse birth outcomes in infants whose birth records indicated maternal residence in villages containing dumpsites potentially hazardous to health and environment. Birth records from 1997 to 2001 identified 10,073 eligible infants born to mothers in 197 Alaska Native villages. Outcomes included low or very low birth weight, preterm birth, and intrauter...

It has been known since Little's time that a high proportion of children with cerebral palsy are premature and that many are very small at birth. A study of the relation between the group of disorders included under the term cerebral palsy and very low birth weight was undertaken in the hope that it might contribute useful aetiological information. This report describes the results of a survey,...

BACKGROUND Women with previous terminations of pregnancy (TOPs) before their first birth have been associated with poorer perinatal outcomes. However, previous studies on the perinatal outcomes by the method in previous TOPs are inconsistent. OBJECTIVE To examine the perinatal outcomes of the first-time mothers with singleton births, by the method of previous TOP (medical and surgical vs no T...

We investigate the relationship between maternal exposure to benzene and birth weight outcomes for resident births in the United States in 1996 and 1999, taking advantage of a natural experiment afforded by the regulation of benzene content of gasoline in various American cities. Regression results show that a unit increase (μg/m(3)) in maternal exposure to benzene reduces birth weight by 16.5 ...

OBJECTIVE Universal Newborn Hearing Screening began in 2 Honolulu hospitals in 1992, and by 1999, all 14 civilian birthing facilities in Hawaii were providing screening. Examination of 1998 Hawaii data indicated that approximately 13% of infants who did not pass initial hearing screening in the hospital did not return for the indicated follow-up. The purpose of this study was to determine the e...

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the elevated rate of low birth weight (LBW) in the Region of Peel, Ontario can be attributed to the high proportion of immigrants in the population. In addition, we examined how the infant birth weight distribution in Peel differs by maternal region of birth. METHODS Provincial live birth registration data were used to compare rates o...

OBJECTIVE The aim of the present study was to compare the beginning of eruption of the first deciduous tooth in preterm infants (<38 weeks) with full-term infants (38 and 42 weeks) of normal birth weight ((3)2.500g), low birth weight (< 2.500g) and very low birth weight (<1.500g), in order to evaluate if premature birth and low birth weight would affect tooth eruption. METHODS The neonatal re...