Research article summary:

Birth weight, childhood socioeconomic environment, and cognitive development in the 1958 British birth cohort study.

Abstract Extract:
OBJECTIVES: To examine the combined effect of social class and weight at birth on cognitive trajectories during school age and the associations between birth weight and educational outcomes through to 33 years. DESIGN: Longitudinal, population based, ... (Full abstract text below)

Published 2002Aug in Journal: BMJ (Language : eng)

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1. BMJ. 2002 Aug;325(7359):305

Birth weight, childhood socioeconomic environment, and cognitive development in the 1958 British birth cohort study.

Jefferis BJ, Power C, Hertzman C

Institute of Child Health, Centre for Paediatric Epidemiology and Biostatistics, London WC1N 1EH.

OBJECTIVES: To examine the combined effect of social class and weight at birth on cognitive trajectories during school age and the associations between birth weight and educational outcomes through to 33 years. DESIGN: Longitudinal, population based, birth cohort study. PARTICIPANTS: 10 845 males and females born during 3-9 March 1958 with information on birth weight, social class, and cognitive tests. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Reading, maths, draw a man, copying designs, verbal and non-verbal ability tests at ages 7, 11, and 16, highest qualifications achieved by 33, and trajectories of maths standardised scores at 7-16 years. RESULTS: The outcome of all childhood cognitive tests and educational achievements improved significantly with increasing birth weight. Analysis of maths scores at 7 and of highest qualifications achieved by 33 showed that the relations were robust to adjustment for potential confounding factors. For each kilogram increase in birth weight, maths z score increased by 0.17 (adjusted estimate 0.15, 95% confidence interval 0.10 to 0.21) for males and 0.21 (0.20, 0.14 to 0.25) for females. Trajectories of maths z scores between 7 and 16 years diverged for different social class groups: participants from classes I and II increased their relative position on the score with increasing age, whereas classes IV and V showed a relative decline with increasing age. Birth weight explained much less of the variation in cognition than did social class (range 0.5-1.5% v 2.9-12.5%). CONCLUSIONS: The postnatal environment has an overwhelming influence on cognitive function through to early adulthood, but these strong effects do not explain the weaker but independent association with birth weight.

PMID : 12169505 [PubMed - Indexed for MEDLINE]

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Full Author Information

First Name	LastName	Initials
Barbara J M H	Jefferis	BJ
Chris	Power	C
Clyde	Hertzman	C

Affiliation: Institute of Child Health, Centre for Paediatric Epidemiology and Biostatistics, London WC1N 1EH.

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