title: Paternal factors to the offspring birth weight: the 829 birth cohort study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the contributions of parental, especially paternal factors to the offspring birth weight.
  
  
  METHODS
  Eligible 829 live-born, singleton children living in Hubei, China were recruited. Birth weight were measured immediately after birth and information about the parents were collected by face-to-face interview using questionnaire. Association between parental factors and birth weight was evaluated using univariate linear regression and multinomial logistic regression models.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Fathers living in the rural area had offspring with higher risk of low birth weight when compared with fathers who live in the capital city. Maternal lower education, lower gestational weight gain, being primipara and shorter gestational age were risk factors for low birth weight. In addition, Mothers with the history of chronic disease had higher risk to deliver a low birth weight baby. On the contrary, women who increased non-staple food consumption during pregnancy had higher risk to have a macrosomic pregnancy. However, lifestyle factors including diet, exercise, screen time, drinking and smoking from both maternal and paternal exhibited little influence on fetal birth weight.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Paternal as well as maternal factors exert influence on the fetal birth weight, although maternal factors make bigger contributions. Compared with socioeconomic and obstetric factors, lifestyle before and during pregnancy has less influence on fetal birth weight, suggested that special attention should be paid to antenatal care for the pregnant women with lower socioeconomic status in rural area.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Wuhan University China.
authors.forename: Cuifang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.affiliation: Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Wuhan University China.
authors.forename: Tingting
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Wuhan University China.
authors.forename: Fangfang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Wuhan University China.
authors.forename: Mengting
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Wuhan University China.
authors.forename: Lifang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Wuhan University China ; Hubei Provincial Key Laboratory for Applied Toxicology, Hubei Provincial Academy for Preventive Medicine China.
authors.forename: Suqing
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
keywords: Birth weight; diet; lifestyle; maternal factor; paternal factor; socioeconomic