Premium
Is conception delay a risk factor for reduced gestation or birthweight?
Author(s) -
Cooney Maureen A.,
Buck Louis Germaine M.,
Sun Wenyu,
Rice Madeline M.,
Klebanoff Mark A.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
paediatric and perinatal epidemiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.667
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1365-3016
pISSN - 0269-5022
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-3016.2006.00712.x
Subject(s) - medicine , odds ratio , obstetrics , gestation , small for gestational age , pregnancy , gestational age , confidence interval , confounding , birth weight , low birth weight , percentile , statistics , genetics , mathematics , biology
Summary Previous studies have suggested an association between delays in conception and adverse perinatal outcomes, specifically, low birthweight and preterm birth. We investigated the relationship between conception delay (defined as >6 months to become pregnant) and three perinatal outcomes: low birthweight (LBW; <2500 g), preterm birth (PTB; <37 weeks), and small‐for‐gestational‐age (SGA; <10th percentile weight for given gestational age) using data from the Collaborative Perinatal Project. The study cohort was limited to pregnancies with a known time‐to‐pregnancy ( n = 8465; 15%). Generalised estimating equations were used to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals [CI] for risk of adverse perinatal outcomes accounting for the clustering of pregnancy outcomes for women with more than one pregnancy. After adjusting for confounders, all ORs were close to the null (LBW, OR = 1.01; 95% CI = 0.86, 1.20), (PTB, OR = 1.10; 95% CI = 0.95, 1.27), (SGA, OR = 1.06; 95% CI = 0.91, 1.25). Thus, we found no evidence to support an adverse relationship between conception delay and decrements in gestation or birthweight among this select sample of fertile women, even after varying the cut‐point for defining conception delay.