of the association of maternal and infant birth weights was followed by the description of the association between large maternal birth weight and delivery of a macrosomic (>4000 gram) infant. Study of other fetal growth parameters, including length and head circumference, demonstrated that infants of low birth weight mothers were both shorter and lighter than infants of larger mothers' but that the infants were normally proportioned. In a related study, birth certificates of infants born in Tennessee between 1979 to 1984 were matched with those of their mothers, who were born in Tennessee between 1959 to 1966. Maternal and infant birth weights were again shown to be correlated. In addition, women who were themselves of low birth weight were up to 4 times as likely to have a small for gestational age infant as were women weighing 4000-4499 grams, but the low birth weight women were less than twice as likely to have a preterm infants. Follow-up of girls who were born in the 1960's as subjects in the Collaborative Perinatal Project and Danish Perinatal Study is currently underway in order to examine their reproductive histories. Small for gestational age, preterm and control girls will be located and interviewed. Hospital records of their confinements will also be retrieved.
| Klebanoff, M A; Secher, N J; Mednick, B R et al. (1999) Maternal size at birth and the development of hypertension during pregnancy: a test of the Barker hypothesis. Arch Intern Med 159:1607-12 |
