Season of birth is associated with later outcomes; what drives this association remains unclear. We consider a new explanation: variation in maternal characteristics. We document large changes in maternal characteristics for births throughout the year; winter births are disproportionally realized by teenagers and the unmarried. Family background controls explain nearly half of season-of-birth's...

The optimal management of preterm premature rupture of membranes (PROM) is controversial. Maternal risks must be weighed against fetal benefit when expectant management is considered. Despite concerns about maternal harm, protocols of expectant management seem to afford the best perinatal outcomes. Given that infection often is the common pathway for delivery in preterm PROM, recent reports hav...

BACKGROUND Socioeconomic inequalities in health outcomes are dynamic and vary over time. Differences between countries can provide useful insights into the causes of health inequalities. The study aims to compare the associations between two measures of socioeconomic position (SEP)-maternal education and family income-and maternal and infant health outcomes between ALSPAC and Pelotas cohorts. ...

This prospective, longitudinal study aimed to investigate relationships between indicators of maternal prenatal stress, infant birth outcomes and early temperament. We examined the pattern of associations and postulated pathways between physiological (cortisol plasma concentrations) and self-report indices (stress, anxiety) of maternal prenatal stress, cortisol in the amniotic fluid, birth outc...

Objective. Asthma is a common clinical complication of pregnancy and women with asthma are at greater risk of having complications. This study compared adverse maternal outcomes between women with asthma and women without asthma in Nevada. Methods. A total of 64,664 hospital discharges of delivery were abstracted from the Nevada 2003-2004 hospital discharges and thirteen adverse maternal outcom...

BACKGROUND Perinatal risk factors are related to persistent and violent criminal outcomes. Prenatal maternal smoking may represent an additional perinatal risk factor for adult criminal outcomes. Our study examines maternal smoking during pregnancy as a predictor of offspring crime in the context of a prospective, longitudinal design. METHODS Subjects were a birth cohort of 4169 males born be...

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study was to determine the prognostic value of the first urinary albumin/creatinine ratio (ACR) for adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes and how it relates to other prognostic factors. MATERIAL AND METHODS We performed a retrospective cohort study from December 2009 to February 2012 with analysis of demographic, clinical and biochemical data from two obstetric d...

BACKGROUND There is growing evidence of the negative impact of alcohol on morbidity and mortality of individuals living with HIV but limited evidence of in utero effects of HIV and alcohol on exposure on infants. METHODS We conducted a population-based birth cohort study (N = 667 mother-infant dyads) in South Africa to investigate whether maternal alcohol use and HIV affected gestational outc...

BACKGROUND Most studies of the reproductive consequences of cigarette smoking base exposure on self-reported smoking habits. This study examines the relationship of birth outcomes to the timing and intensity of maternal active and passive smoking estimated both from self-reports and from cotinine concentration in maternal urine during early, middle, and late gestation. METHOD This cohort stud...