Menstrual irregularity as a biological limit to early pregnancy awareness.

US state legislatures have proposed laws to prohibit abortion once the earliest embryonic electrical activity is detectable (fetal "heartbeat"). On average, this occurs roughly 6 wk after the last menstrual period. To be eligible for abortion, people must recognize pregnancy very early in gestation. The earliest symptom of pregnancy is a missed period, and irregular menstrual cycles-which occur frequently-can delay pregnancy detection past the point of fetal cardiac activity. In our analysis of 1.6 million prospectively recorded menstrual cycles, cycle irregularity was more common among young women, Hispanic women, and women with common health conditions, such as diabetes and polycystic ovary syndrome. These groups face physiological limitations in detecting pregnancy before fetal cardiac activity. Restriction of abortion this early in gestation differentially affects specific population subgroups, for reasons outside of individual control.

Daily snuff use during pregnancy, gestational length and birth weight; register-based study.

BACKGROUND: Snuff is a smokeless source of nicotine that is common in Scandinavia and increasingly used by women of fertile age. Persistent use of snuff during pregnancy has been associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Emerging data from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway distinguishes between occasional use and daily use. We provide preliminary estimates of associations between frequency of snuff and gestational length and birth weight. METHODS: Data on snuff use during pregnancies delivered in 2020 and 2021 were available for the west and central regions of Norway. Associations of snuff use with gestational length and birth weight at term (39-41 weeks) were estimated using quantile regression at the 25th, the 50th and the 75th percentiles, with adjustments for mother's age, pre-pregnancy weight, and parity. We compared associations with the pregnancy outcomes according to maternal snuff and cigarette use. RESULTS: 12.4% of 18 042 non-smoking women reported daily use of snuff before pregnancy, and 4.6% reported continuing use during pregnancy, with 1.2% still reporting daily use in the last trimester. Women with daily use through the last trimester delivered babies with a median gestational length reduced by 3.4 days (95% CI: -5.0 to -1.7 days) compared with women who never used snuff. The reduction was even stronger at the 25th percentile of gestational age. The median term birth weight was reduced by 44 g (95% CI: -134 to 46 g). These associations were much weaker for women who quit snuff at some point during pregnancy or used snuff only occasionally. Mothers who smoked daily through the last trimester had a median gestational length reduced by 2.1 days (95% CI: -2.7 to -1.4) and a median term birth weight reduced by 294 g (95% CI: -325 to -262) compared with never-smokers. CONCLUSIONS: Daily snuff use through the last trimester reduced the median gestational length by more than three days. Snuff reduced birth weight, but not as much as smoking, suggesting that the predominant effect of smoking on fetal growth is not through nicotine but through the additional toxic chemicals in cigarettes or by reduced oxygen supply to the fetus.

Invited Commentary: Beyond Barker-Mothers Are the Ones at Risk.

Dr. David Barker hypothesized that low birth weight (LBW) is the result of inadequate fetal nutrition, leading to increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the offspring. This hypothesis has stimulated thousands of reports on low birth weight (LBW) and CVD risk. One problem with this association is that many LBW infants are small because they are preterm, not growth-restricted. A second problem is that maternal CVD risk factors confound the association. In an accompanying article, Lu et al. (Am J Epidemiol. 2023;192(6):866-877) address both concerns. Using population data from Sweden and Denmark, the authors estimated CVD incidence among offspring born small for gestational age (SGA). The smallest 3% had a CVD hazard ratio of 1.44 (95% confidence interval: 1.38, 1.51). Even this moderate risk mostly evaporated in sibship analysis, which controlled for unmeasured maternal CVD risk factors (hazard ratio = 1.11, 95% confidence interval: 0.99, 1.25). The risk highlighted by Barker is negligible, especially when compared with a more urgent health issue-cardiovascular risk in women with pregnancy complications. Mothers of SGA infants have up to a 3-fold CVD risk, and mothers with preeclampsia and preterm delivery have up to a 9-fold risk. Pregnancy complications thus provide an early marker of a woman's propensity to develop CVD, and perhaps an opportunity for early intervention. From a public health perspective, Barker's hypothesis about CVD risk in LBW offspring is less compelling than the question of CVD risk among mothers with pregnancy complications. This article is part of a Special Collection on ABC.

Large-Scale Data Harmonization Across Prospective Studies.

The Preconception Period Analysis of Risks and Exposures Influencing Health and Development (PrePARED) Consortium creates a novel resource for addressing preconception health by merging data from numerous cohort studies. In this paper, we describe our data harmonization methods and results. Individual-level data from 12 prospective studies were pooled. The crosswalk-cataloging-harmonization procedure was used. The index pregnancy was defined as the first postbaseline pregnancy lasting more than 20 weeks. We assessed heterogeneity across studies by comparing preconception characteristics in different types of studies. The pooled data set included 114,762 women, and 25,531 (22%) reported at least 1 pregnancy of more than 20 weeks' gestation during the study period. Babies from the index pregnancies were delivered between 1976 and 2021 (median, 2008), at a mean maternal age of 29.7 (standard deviation, 4.6) years. Before the index pregnancy, 60% of women were nulligravid, 58% had a college degree or more, and 37% were overweight or obese. Other harmonized variables included race/ethnicity, household income, substance use, chronic conditions, and perinatal outcomes. Participants from pregnancy-planning studies had more education and were healthier. The prevalence of preexisting medical conditions did not vary substantially based on whether studies relied on self-reported data. Use of harmonized data presents opportunities to study uncommon preconception risk factors and pregnancy-related events. This harmonization effort laid the groundwork for future analyses and additional data harmonization.

Urinary phenol concentrations and fecundability and early pregnancy loss.

STUDY QUESTION: Are urinary phenol concentrations of methylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben, triclosan, benzophenone-3, 2,4-dichlorophenol or 2,5-dichlorophenol associated with fecundability and early pregnancy loss? SUMMARY ANSWER: 2,5-dichlorophenol concentrations were associated with an increased odds of early pregnancy loss, and higher concentrations of butylparaben and triclosan were associated with an increase in fecundability. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Phenols are chemicals with endocrine-disrupting potential found in everyday products. Despite plausible mechanisms of phenol reproductive toxicity, there are inconsistent results across few epidemiologic studies examining phenol exposure and reproductive function in non-fertility treatment populations. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: Specimens and data were from the North Carolina Early Pregnancy Study prospective cohort of 221 women attempting to conceive naturally from 1982 to 1986. This analysis includes data from 221 participants across 706 menstrual cycles, with 135 live births, 15 clinical miscarriages and 48 early pregnancy losses (before 42 days after the last menstrual period). PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: Participants collected daily first-morning urine specimens. For each menstrual cycle, aliquots from three daily specimens across the cycle were pooled within individuals and analyzed for phenol concentrations. To assess sample repeatability, we calculated intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for each phenol. We evaluated associations between phenol concentrations from pooled samples and time to pregnancy using discrete-time logistic regression and generalized estimating equations (GEE), and early pregnancy loss using multivariable logistic regression and GEE. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE: ICCs for within-person variability across menstrual cycles in pooled phenol concentrations ranged from 0.42 to 0.75. There was an increased odds of early pregnancy loss with 2,5-dichlorophenol concentrations although the CIs were wide (5th vs 1st quintile odds ratio (OR): 4.79; 95% CI: 1.06, 21.59). There was an increased per-cycle odds of conception at higher concentrations of butylparaben (OR: 1.62; 95% CI: 1.08, 2.44) and triclosan (OR: 1.49; 95% CI: 0.99, 2.26) compared to non-detectable concentrations. No associations were observed between these endpoints and concentrations of other phenols examined. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION: Limitations include the absence of phenol measurements for male partners and a limited sample size, especially for the outcome of early pregnancy loss, which reduced our power to detect associations. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: This study is the first to use repeated pooled measures to summarize phenol exposure and the first to investigate associations with fecundability and early pregnancy loss. Within-person phenol concentration variability underscores the importance of collecting repeated samples for future studies. Exposure misclassification could contribute to differences between the findings of this study and those of other studies, all of which used one urine sample to assess phenol exposure. This study also contributes to the limited literature probing potential associations between environmental exposures and early pregnancy loss, which is a challenging outcome to study as it typically occurs before a pregnancy is clinically recognized. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S): This research was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (award number F31ES030594), the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (project numbers ES103333 and ES103086) and a doctoral fellowship at the Yale School of Public Health. The authors declare they have no competing interests to disclose. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: N/A.

Inferring fetal growth restriction as rare, severe, and stable over time.

Reduced birthweight is a marker of pathologies that impair growth and also decrease survival. However, "fetal growth restriction" remains poorly defined. Assuming that birthweight itself has no causal effect on neonatal mortality, we can estimate the features of pathological fetal growth that would be required to produce the observed pattern of weight-specific mortality. Under the simplest possible scenario, we find that at 39-41 weeks, pathological fetal growth restriction affects only about 0.5% of U.S. births, with a neonatal mortality risk up to 220-fold. This surprising concentration of pathology among a tiny subset of babies would account for roughly half of neonatal deaths at term. Moreover, the prevalence of these pathological births appears to have remained relatively stable over recent decades, even as neonatal mortality in the U.S. has declined by 90%. In our model, the decline has been driven by the reduction in baseline mortality (i.e., mortality among babies unaffected by growth pathologies), while the relative risk of death among pathologically grown infants has apparently remained stable. Fetal growth restriction is conventionally regarded as common and preventable. In contrast, our observations suggest that pathological fetal growth is rare and constant over time, perhaps the result of unpreventable stochastic errors in embryonic development. Public health strategies may be more effective by setting aside attempts to increase birthweight, and focusing instead on the discovery and support of factors (unrelated to birthweight) that have produced the striking reductions in neonatal mortality over time.

Birthweight of the subsequent singleton pregnancy following a first twin or singleton pregnancy.

INTRODUCTION: Birthweight is an important pregnancy indicator strongly associated with infant, child, and later adult life health. Previous studies have found that second-born babies are, on average, heavier than first-born babies, indicating an independent effect of parity on birthweight. Existing data are mostly based on singleton pregnancies and do not consider higher order pregnancies. We aimed to compare birthweight in singleton pregnancies following a first twin pregnancy relative to a first singleton pregnancy. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This was a prospective registry-based cohort study using maternally linked offspring with first and subsequent pregnancies registered in the Medical Birth Registry of Norway between 1967 and 2020. We studied offspring birthweights of 778 975 women, of which 4849 had twins and 774 126 had singletons in their first pregnancy. Associations between twin or singleton status of the first pregnancy and birthweight (grams) in subsequent singleton pregnancies were evaluated by linear regression adjusted for maternal age at first delivery, year of first pregnancy, maternal education, and country of birth. We used plots to visualize the distribution of birthweight in the first and subsequent pregnancies. RESULTS: Mean combined birthweight of first-born twins was more than 1000 g larger than mean birthweight of first-born singletons. When comparing mean birthweight of a subsequent singleton baby following first-born twins with those following first-born singletons, the adjusted difference was just 21 g (95% confidence interval 5-37 g). CONCLUSIONS: Birthweights of the subsequent singleton baby were similar for women with a first twin or a first singleton pregnancy. Although first twin pregnancies contribute a greater combined total offspring birthweight including more extensive uterine expansion, this does not explain the general parity effect seen in birthweight. The physiological reasons for increased birthweight with parity remain to be established.

The association between miscarriage and fecundability: the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study.

STUDY QUESTION: Is fecundability associated with miscarriage history and future miscarriage risk? SUMMARY ANSWER: Prior miscarriage was associated with lower fecundability, and participants with a history of subfertility (time-to-pregnancy (TTP) ≥12 months) were at a higher risk of subsequent miscarriage. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Although miscarriage and low fecundability share common risk factors, prior studies have reported both lower and higher fecundability after miscarriage. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: In this study, we examined two related associations: one, between miscarriage history and subsequent fecundability and, two, between fecundability and miscarriage risk in the subsequent pregnancy. The study is based on the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). In addition, the outcome of the pregnancy after the MoBa index pregnancy was obtained by linking information from three national health registries: the Medical Birth Registry of Norway, the Norwegian Patient Registry and the general practice database. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: We examined the association between number of prior miscarriages and fecundability in 48 537 naturally conceived, planned pregnancies in participants with at least one prior pregnancy. We estimated fecundability ratios (FRs) and 95% CIs using proportional probability regression. We further estimated the relative risk (RR) of miscarriage in the subsequent pregnancy as a function of TTP in the MoBa index pregnancy for 7889 pregnancies using log-binomial regression. Multivariable analyses adjusted for maternal age, pre-pregnancy maternal BMI, smoking status, cycle regularity, income level and highest completed or ongoing education. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE: Fecundability decreased as the number of prior miscarriages increased. The adjusted FRs among women with one, two and three or more prior miscarriages were 0.83 (95% CI: 0.80-0.85), 0.79 (95% CI: 0.74-0.83) and 0.74 (95% CI: 0.67-0.82), respectively, compared with women with no prior miscarriages. Compared to women with a TTP of <3 months, the adjusted RR of miscarriage in the subsequent pregnancy was 1.16 (0.99-1.35) with TTP of 3-6 months, 1.18 (0.93-1.49) with TTP of 7-11 months and 1.43 (1.13-1.81) with TTP of 12 or more months. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION: Information on TTP and prior miscarriages was obtained retrospectively, and TTP was self-reported. MoBa is a pregnancy cohort, and findings may not be generalizable to all women. We were unable to examine the effect of changing partners between pregnancies, as well as other paternal factors such as seminal parameters. We also did not know what proportion of our participants had changed partners between their prior pregnancies and the index pregnancy. Furthermore, it is likely that many early miscarriages are not recognized. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: The association between miscarriage and fecundability may reflect a contribution of occult pregnancy losses to TTP, as well as shared underlying causes for reduced fecundability and miscarriage. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S): The study was funded by the Research Council of Norway through its Medical Student Research Program funding scheme (project number 271555/F20), its Centres of Excellence funding scheme (project number 262700) and through the project 'Women's fertility - an essential component of health and well-being' (project number 320656). M.C.M. has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement number 947684). A.J.W. is supported by the Intramural Program of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at the National Institutes of Health, USA. The authors report no competing interests. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: N/A.

Design and methods of the Apple Women's Health Study: a digital longitudinal cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Prospective longitudinal cohorts assessing women's health and gynecologic conditions have historically been limited. OBJECTIVE: The Apple Women's Health Study was designed to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship among menstrual cycles, health, and behavior. This paper describes the design and methods of the ongoing Apple Women's Health Study and provides the demographic characteristics of the first 10,000 participants. STUDY DESIGN: This was a mobile-application-based longitudinal cohort study involving survey and sensor-based data. We collected the data from 10,000 participants who responded to the demographics survey on enrollment between November 14, 2019 and May 20, 2020. The participants were asked to complete a monthly follow-up through November 2020. The eligibility included installed Apple Research app on their iPhone with iOS version 13.2 or later, were living in the United States, being of age greater than 18 years (19 in Alabama and Nebraska, 21 years old in Puerto Rico), were comfortable in communicating in written and spoken English, were the sole user of an iCloud account or iPhone, and were willing to provide consent to participate in the study. RESULTS: The mean age at enrollment was 33.6 years old (±standard deviation, 10.3). The race and ethnicity was representative of the US population (69% White and Non-Hispanic [6910/10,000]), whereas 51% (5089/10,000) had a college education or above. The participant geographic distribution included all the US states and Puerto Rico. Seventy-two percent (7223/10,000) reported the use of an Apple Watch, and 24.4% (2438/10,000) consented to sensor-based data collection. For this cohort, 38% (3490/9238) did not respond to the Monthly Survey: Menstrual Update after enrollment. At the 6-month follow-up, there was a 35% (3099/8972) response rate to the Monthly Survey: Menstrual Update. 82.7% (8266/10,000) of the initial cohort and 95.1% (2948/3099) of the participants who responded to month 6 of the Monthly Survey: Menstrual Update tracked at least 1 menstrual cycle via HealthKit. The participants tracked their menstrual bleeding days for an average of 4.44 (25%-75%; range, 3-6) calendar months during the study period. Non-White participants were slightly more likely to drop out than White participants; those remaining at 6 months were otherwise similar in demographic characteristics to the original enrollment group. CONCLUSION: The first 10,000 participants of the Apple Women's Health Study were recruited via the Research app and were diverse in race and ethnicity, educational attainment, and economic status, despite all using an Apple iPhone. Future studies within this cohort incorporating this high-dimensional data may facilitate discovery in women's health in exposure outcome relationships and population-level trends among iPhone users. Retention efforts centered around education, communication, and engagement will be utilized to improve the survey response rates, such as the study update feature.

Risk of miscarriage in women with chronic diseases in Norway: A registry linkage study.

BACKGROUND: Increased risk of miscarriage has been reported for women with specific chronic health conditions. A broader investigation of chronic diseases and miscarriage risk may uncover patterns across categories of illness. The objective of this study was to study the risk of miscarriage according to various preexisting chronic diseases. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We conducted a registry-based study. Registered pregnancies (n = 593,009) in Norway between 2010 and 2016 were identified through 3 national health registries (birth register, general practitioner data, and patient registries). Six broad categories of illness were identified, comprising 25 chronic diseases defined by diagnostic codes used in general practitioner and patient registries. We required that the diseases were diagnosed before the pregnancy of interest. Miscarriage risk according to underlying chronic diseases was estimated as odds ratios (ORs) using generalized estimating equations adjusting for woman's age. The mean age of women at the start of pregnancy was 29.7 years (SD 5.6 years). We observed an increased risk of miscarriage among women with cardiometabolic diseases (OR 1.25, 95% CI 1.20 to 1.31; p-value <0.001). Within this category, risks were elevated for all conditions: atherosclerosis (2.22; 1.42 to 3.49; p-value <0.001), hypertensive disorders (1.19; 1.13 to 1.26; p-value <0.001), and type 2 diabetes (1.38; 1.26 to 1.51; p-value <0.001). Among other categories of disease, risks were elevated for hypoparathyroidism (2.58; 1.35 to 4.92; p-value 0.004), Cushing syndrome (1.97; 1.06 to 3.65; p-value 0.03), Crohn's disease (OR 1.31; 95% CI: 1.18 to 1.45; p-value 0.001), and endometriosis (1.22; 1.15 to 1.29; p-value <0.001). Findings were largely unchanged after mutual adjustment. Limitations of this study include our inability to adjust for measures of socioeconomic position or lifestyle characteristics, in addition to the rareness of some of the conditions providing limited power. CONCLUSIONS: In this registry study, we found that, although risk of miscarriage was largely unaffected by maternal chronic diseases, risk of miscarriage was associated with conditions related to cardiometabolic health. This finding is consistent with emerging evidence linking cardiovascular risk factors to pregnancy complications.

Term Birth Weight and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes.

BACKGROUND: Preterm birth is an important risk factor for neurodevelopmental disabilities. The vast majority of these disabilities occur, however, among term births. The role of fetal growth restriction specifically among term babies has been incompletely described. METHODS: We conducted a population-based study of term birth weight and its link to a range of neurodevelopmental outcomes using Norwegian health registries. To remove the influence of preterm birth, we restricted our analyses to 1.8 million singleton babies born during a narrow range of term gestational age (39-41 weeks). Babies with malformations were excluded. We adjusted analyses simply for year of birth, as further adjustments for sex, parity, maternal age, smoking, marital status, immigrant status, and parental education had trivial influence. An additional sibling analysis controlled for unmeasured family-based confounding. RESULTS: The risk of neurodevelopmental disabilities at term steadily increased at birth weights lower than 3.5 kg. Using the category of 3.5-3.9 kg as the reference, the odds reached 25-fold for cerebral palsy at the smallest weights (95% confidence interval 8.0, 79), 16-fold for vision/hearing disability (4.0, 65), 11-fold for intellectual impairment (6.9, 17), 7-fold for schizophrenia (1.0, 50), 5.4-fold for epilepsy (2.6, 12), and 3.5-fold for autism spectrum (1.3, 9.4) and behavioral disorders including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (2.1, 5.4). Associations remained robust with sibling controls. CONCLUSIONS: Reduced fetal growth is a powerful predictor of a wide variety of neurodevelopmental disabilities independent of preterm delivery.

Growth in children conceived by ART.

STUDY QUESTION: Is the growth pattern of children conceived by ART different compared to naturally conceived children. SUMMARY ANSWER: Both ART and underlying parental subfertility may contribute to differences in early childhood growth between children conceived with and without the use of ART. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Children conceived by ART weigh less and are shorter at the time of delivery. The extent to which differences in growth according to mode of conception persist during childhood, and the role of underlying parental subfertility, remains unclear. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: We conducted a prospective study population-based study. We studied 81 461 children participating in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) and 544 113 adolescents screened for military conscription. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: Conception by ART as registered in the Medical Birth Registry. We compared maternally reported length/height and weight among children in MoBa from mid-pregnancy to age 7 according to mode of conception using mixed-effects linear regression. Differences in self-reported height and weight at 17 years of age at screening for military conscription were assessed with linear regression. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE: At birth, children conceived by ART were shorter (boys -0.3 cm; 95% CI, -0.5 to -0.1), girls -0.4 cm; 95% CI, -0.5 to -0.3) and lighter (boys -113 grams; 95% CI, -201 to -25, girls -107 grams; 95% CI, -197 to -17). After birth, children conceived by ART grew more rapidly, achieving both greater height and weight at age 3. Children conceived by ART had a greater height up to age 7, but did not have a greater height or weight by age 17. Naturally conceived children of parents taking longer time to conceive had growth patterns similar to ART children. Children born after frozen embryo transfer had larger ultrasound measures and were longer and heavier the first 2 years than those born after fresh embryo transfer. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTIONS: Selection bias could have been introduced due to the modest participation rate in the MoBa cohort. Our reliance on self-reported measures of length/height and weight could have introduced measurement error. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: : Our findings provide reassurance that offspring conceived by ART are not different in height, weight or BMI from naturally conceived once they reach adolescence. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S): Research Council of Norway; Medical Research Council; National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. The authors have no competing interest. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: N/A.

Risk of miscarriage in women with psychiatric disorders.

BACKGROUND: Some psychiatric disorders have been associated with increased risk of miscarriage. However, there is a lack of studies considering a broader spectrum of psychiatric disorders to clarify the role of common as opposed to independent mechanisms. AIMS: To examine the risk of miscarriage among women diagnosed with psychiatric conditions. METHOD: We studied registered pregnancies in Norway between 2010 and 2016 (n = 593 009). The birth registry captures pregnancies ending in gestational week 12 or later, and the patient and general practitioner databases were used to identify miscarriages and induced abortions before 12 gestational weeks. Odds ratios of miscarriage according to 12 psychiatric diagnoses were calculated by logistic regression. CONCLUSIONS: A wide range of psychiatric disorders were associated with increased risk of miscarriage. The heightened risk of miscarriage among women diagnosed with psychiatric disorders highlights the need for awareness and surveillance of this risk group in antenatal care.

The limits of small-for-gestational-age as a high-risk category.

SGA (small for gestational age) is widely used to identify high-risk infants, although with inconsistent definitions. Cut points range from 2.5th to 10th percentile of birthweight-for-gestational age. We used receiver operator characteristic curves (ROC) to identify the cut point with maximum sensitivity and specificity (Youden Index), and the area under the curve (AUC), which assesses overall discriminating power. Analysis was conducted on 3,836,034 US births (2015) and 292,279 Norwegian births (2010-14). Birthweight percentiles were calculated using exact birthweights at each week of gestational age, and then summarized across gestational ages. We also conducted a companion analysis of gestational age itself to consider the predictive power of gestational week of birth. Outcomes were neonatal mortality and cerebral palsy, both strongly associated with birthweight. Birthweight percentiles performed poorly in all analyses. The AUC for birthweight percentiles as a discriminator of neonatal mortality was 60% (where 50% is no better than a coin-toss). At such low discrimination, the Youden Index provides no useful SGA cut point. Results in Norway were virtually identical, with an AUC of 58%. The AUC with cerebral palsy as the outcome was even lower, at 54%. In contrast, gestational age had an AUC of 85% as a predictor of neonatal mortality, with < 37 weeks as the optimum cut point. SGA provides surprisingly poor identification of at-risk infants, while gestational age performs well. Similar results in two countries that differ in mean birthweight, percent preterm, and neonatal mortality suggest robustness across populations.

Perspectives on the Future of Epidemiology: A Framework for Training.

Over the past century, the field of epidemiology has evolved and adapted to changing public health needs. Challenges include newly emerging public health concerns across broad and diverse content areas, new methods, and vast data sources. We recognize the need to engage and educate the next generation of epidemiologists and prepare them to tackle these issues of the 21st century. In this commentary, we suggest a skeleton framework upon which departments of epidemiology should build their curriculum. We propose domains that include applied epidemiology, biological and social determinants of health, communication, creativity and ability to collaborate and lead, statistical methods, and study design. We believe all students should gain skills across these domains to tackle the challenges posed to us. The aim is to train smart thinkers, not technicians, to embrace challenges and move the expanding field of epidemiology forward.

Stumped by the Hump: The Curious Rise and Fall of Norwegian Birthweights, 1991-2007.

BACKGROUND: There was a distinct rise in mean birthweights in Norway starting in 1991 that plateaued in 1996-2002 and then declined to previous levels. We investigated whether these changes corresponded to trends in neonatal mortality or other birthweight-associated pregnancy outcomes. We also explored known predictors of birthweight and examined whether these could explain the birthweight trends. METHODS: We calculated mean birthweight for all live births in Norway in each year from 1982 to 2016, together with annual neonatal mortality and proportion of infants born preterm, or with low Apgar score. We stratified mean birthweight over time by factors including parity, gestational age, and Scandinavian versus non-Scandinavian origin of mother, to test robustness of the pattern. In addition, we used multivariable linear regression to obtain adjusted estimates for mean birthweight per year. RESULTS: A 50-g rise and fall of mean birthweights during a 25-year period was not accompanied by corresponding changes in neonatal mortality, preterm births, or Apgar scores. The distinct hump pattern was restricted to term births and was not apparent among infants of mothers born outside Scandinavia. We saw a similar pattern for Sweden but not Finland. Known predictors of birthweight (such as parity, mode of onset of delivery, and marital status) did not explain the hump. CONCLUSIONS: A distinct temporal hump in mean birthweight among Norwegian term births had no obvious explanations. Furthermore, these fluctuations in birthweight were not associated indirectly with adverse outcomes in measures of infant health.

Preimplantation loss of fertilized human ova: estimating the unobservable.

STUDY QUESTION: What proportion of fertilized human ova are lost before implantation? SUMMARY ANSWER: An estimated 40 to 50% of fertilized ova fail to implant. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: Preimplantation loss is not detectable with current technology. Published estimates of preimplantation loss range from 10 to 70%. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: We combine data from epidemiologic, demographic, laboratory and in vitro fertilization studies to construct an empirical framework for the estimation of preimplantation loss. This framework is summarized in a user-friendly Excel file included in supplement. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: We draw from multiple sources to generate plausible estimates of fecundability, sterility, transient anovulation, intercourse patterns and the proportion of ova fertilized in the presence of sperm. We combine these estimates to generate a summary estimate of preimplantation loss. This estimate can be considered an average for couples in their prime reproductive years. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE: Under a plausible range of assumptions, we estimate that 40 to 50% of fertilized ova fail to implant. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION: A crucial factor in estimating preimplantation loss is the probability that an ovum will be fertilized when exposed to sperm. Human data are available only from in vitro fertilization (IVF), which may not accurately represent events in vivo. We therefore assume a range of in vivo fertilization rates, from 64% (human IVF data) to 90% (mouse data). WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: Our estimate of preimplantation loss takes into account the biological processes relevant to fertilization and loss. Using this empirical basis for estimation, we find support for the usual assumption that risk of loss is highest in the earliest days following fertilization. Furthermore, this framework can provide improved estimates as better reproductive data become available. To the extent that our estimates are accurate, more fertilized ova are apparently lost in vitro than in vivo, suggesting that further improvements in IVF success rates may be possible. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S): This study was supported by the Intramural Program of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH. Professor Adashi serves as Co-Chair of the Safety Advisory Board of Ohana Biosciences, Inc. The other authors have no competing interests. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: N/A.

Seasonal and pandemic influenza during pregnancy and risk of fetal death: A Norwegian registry-based cohort study.

Previous studies of fetal death with maternal influenza have been inconsistent. We explored the effect of maternal influenza-like illness (ILI) in pregnancy on the risk of fetal death, distinguishing between diagnoses during regular influenza seasons and the 2009/2010 pandemic and between trimesters of ILI. We used birth records from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway to identify fetal deaths after the first trimester in singleton pregnancies (2006-2013). The Norwegian Directorate of Health provided dates of clinical influenza diagnoses by primary-health-care providers, whereas dates of laboratory-confirmed influenza A (H1N1) diagnoses were provided by the Norwegian Surveillance System for Communicable Diseases. We obtained dates and types of influenza vaccinations from the Norwegian Immunisation Registry. Cox proportional-hazards regression models were fitted to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) of fetal death, with associated 95% confidence intervals (CIs), comparing women with and without an ILI diagnosis in pregnancy. There were 2510 fetal deaths among 417,406 eligible pregnancies. ILI during regular seasons was not associated with increased risk of fetal death: adjusted HR = 0.90 (95% CI 0.64-1.27). In contrast, ILI during the pandemic was associated with substantially increased risk of fetal death, with an adjusted HR of 1.75 (95% CI 1.21-2.54). The risk was highest following first-trimester ILI (adjusted HR = 2.28 [95% CI 1.45-3.59]). ILI during the pandemic-but not during regular seasons-was associated with increased risk of fetal death in the second and third trimester. The estimated effect was strongest with ILI in first trimester.

Parental education and the risk of cerebral palsy for children: an evaluation of causality.

AIM: To explore whether increasing parental education has a causal effect on risk of cerebral palsy (CP) in the child, or whether unobserved confounding is a more likely explanation. METHOD: We used data from Norwegian registries on approximately 1.5 million children born between 1967 and 2011. We compared results from a traditional cohort design with results from a family-based matched case-control design, in which children with CP were matched to their first cousins without CP. In addition, we performed a simulation study to assess the role of unobserved confounding. RESULTS: In the cohort design, the odds of CP were reduced in children of mothers and fathers with higher education (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 0.67, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.60-0.75 for maternal education, and adjusted OR 0.75, 95% CI 0.67-0.85 for paternal education). In the family-based case-control design, only an association for maternal education remained (adjusted OR 0.80, 95% CI 0.64-0.99). Results from a simulation study suggested that this association could be explained by unobserved confounding. INTERPRETATION: A causal effect of obtaining higher education on risk of CP in the child is unlikely. Results stress the importance of continued research on the role of genetic and environmental risk factors that vary by parents' educational level. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: Children of higher-educated parents had significantly lower odds of cerebral palsy (CP). There was no evidence of difference in risk of CP within first cousins whose mothers or fathers had different educational levels. Association between parental education and odds of CP did not reflect a causal effect.