title: Maternal practices that influence Hispanic infants' health and cognitive growth.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Infants born to immigrant mothers, including Hispanic mothers, display birth weight and mortality advantages, compared with other disadvantaged groups. We examined prenatal biological factors and maternal practices that account for this advantage. Then we estimated the extent to which healthy birth outcomes, along with maternal and family factors, contribute to the health and cognitive functioning of Hispanic infants.
  
  
  METHODS
  A representative US sample of 8114 newborns, including 1450 newborns of Hispanic mothers, was drawn randomly in 2001. We compared the mean attributes of infants in subgroups that vary in maternal practices, family attributes, and acculturation levels. We accounted for variations in newborns' gestational age and size for gestational age and their health status and cognitive functioning at 9 months of age.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Mexican-heritage and less-acculturated mothers were no more likely than white mothers to bear premature or small-for-gestational age infants, despite large social class disparities, which was explained in part by Hispanic women's low level of prenatal tobacco use. Parenting practices and lower class status of Hispanic mothers then began to slow infants' cognitive development, compared with white infants, because of weaker maternal education and cognitive facilitation during interaction tasks and larger family size.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings extend earlier research, detailing healthy births among most immigrant Hispanic women. Robust birth outcomes contribute to the early health and cognitive growth of Hispanic infants, but risk factors linked to maternal and home practices overtake these early protective factors by late infancy. Robust births and early health indicators displayed by Hispanic infants should not distract pediatricians from attending to uneven cognitive growth.
authors.affiliation: University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Education, Tolman Hall 3659, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. b_fuller@berkeley.edu
authors.forename: Bruce
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Fuller
authors.forename: Edward
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bein
authors.forename: Margaret
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bridges
authors.forename: Neal
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Halfon
authors.forename: Sunyoung
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.forename: Sophia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rabe-Hesketh
authors.forename: Alice
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kuo
mesh_terms: D000069:Acculturation; D000367:Age Factors; D001724:Birth Weight; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007229:Infant Welfare; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D017058:Mexican Americans; D011247:Pregnancy; D011256:Pregnancy Outcome; D012944:Social Support; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors