Can children's health be predicted by perinatal health?
BACKGROUND
The purpose of this paper was to investigate how well children's health until age 7 years can be predicted by perinatal outcome using routine health registers.


METHODS
Follow-up of one year cohort (N = 60192) was performed by record linkages with personal identification number. The data came from the 1987 Finnish Medical Birth Register, from six other national registers and from education registers of one county.


RESULTS
All perinatal health indicators showed a strong correlation with subsequent health, and prediction of good health was satisfactory: 85% of children who were healthy in the perinatal period did not have any reported health problems in early childhood, and 91% of children healthy in early childhood had been healthy in the perinatal period. However, it was not possible to predict poor health outcome: 76% of the children with reported perinatal problems were healthy in early childhood, and 87% of the children with long-term morbidity in childhood did not have any perinatal problems.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings suggest that in assessing risk factors and health care technology, monitoring perinatal health is not enough and long-term follow-ups are needed.
Gissler
M
M
National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES), Health Services Research Unit, Helsinki, Finland.
Järvelin
M R
MR
Louhiala
P
P
Rahkonen
O
O
Hemminki
E
E
D002648:Child; D002669:Child Welfare; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007226:Infant Mortality; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007232:Infant, Newborn, Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008297:Male; D016017:Odds Ratio; D018743:Perinatal Care; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012042:Registries; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity