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Impact of maternal and paternal preconception health on birth outcomes using prospective couples’ data in Add Health

  • Maternal-Fetal Medicine
  • Published:
Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Retrospective studies of preconception health have demonstrated that parents’ health conditions and behaviors can impact a newborn’s birth outcomes and, subsequently, future health status. This study sought to examine the impact of preconception health, measured prospectively, among both mothers and fathers, on two important birth outcomes: birthweight and gestational age.

Methods

Data came from Add Health (the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health), which included interviews with original participants and a subsample of their partners in 2001–02. In 2008, the original respondents again completed an interview for Add Health. For 372 eligible infants born to these couples, birth outcomes (measured in 2008) were regressed on preconception health conditions and behaviors among non-pregnant heterosexual partners (measured in 2001–02).

Results

Mean birthweight was 3,399 g, and mean gestational age was 39 weeks. Birthweight was higher for infants born to mothers with diabetes or high blood pressure, and for mothers who drank alcohol at least once per month, and lower for infants born to fathers with diabetes (p < 0.05). Infant gestational age was marginally lower for infants born to mothers with higher levels of depression (p < 0.10), and lower for infants born to fathers with diabetes and with higher levels of fast food consumption (p < 0.05).

Conclusions

Both maternal and paternal preconception health conditions and behaviors influenced infant birth outcomes. Interventions to promote preconception health should focus on prevention of diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as minimizing consumption of alcohol and fast food.

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Acknowledgments

This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Access to the data used in the present analysis is restricted to protect against deductive disclosure.

Ethical standard

All participants provided informed consent before completing questionnaires at each wave of study collection. The University of North Carolina Non-Biomedical Institutional Review Board approved the study procedures and analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Behavior, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, CB 7440, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599-7440, USA

    Jennifer L. Moss

  2. Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA

    Kathleen Mullan Harris

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Correspondence to Jennifer L. Moss.

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Moss, J.L., Harris, K.M. Impact of maternal and paternal preconception health on birth outcomes using prospective couples’ data in Add Health. Arch Gynecol Obstet 291, 287–298 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00404-014-3521-0

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