title: Is conception delay a risk factor for reduced gestation or birthweight?
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. cooneyma@mail.nih.gov
authors.forename: Maureen A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Cooney
authors.forename: Germaine M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Buck Louis
authors.forename: Wenyu
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Madeline M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Rice
authors.forename: Mark A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Klebanoff
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005306:Fertilization; D006801:Humans; D007230:Infant, Low Birth Weight; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007236:Infant, Small for Gestational Age; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011247:Pregnancy; D011256:Pregnancy Outcome; D047928:Premature Birth / Q000209:etiology*; D012307:Risk Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013997:Time Factors