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The influence of maternal socioeconomic and emotional factors on infant weight gain and weight faltering (failure to thrive): Data from a prospective birth cohort

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Margaret Wright, Dr Kathryn Parkinson

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Abstract

Aims: To study the influence of maternal socioeconomic and emotional factors on infant weight gain and weight faltering (failure to thrive) in the first year of life. Methods: The Gateshead Millennium Baby Study is a population birth cohort in northeast England studied prospectively from birth, via parental questionnaires and a health check aged 13 months. Data were collected on maternal education, deprivation, eating attitudes, and depression, using the Edinburgh Post Natal Depression Scale (EPDS) at 3 months. Weight gain was assessed using change in weight SD score, conditional on birth weight (Thrive Index); weight faltering was defined as conditional weight gain below the 5th centile. Results: Of 923 eligible infants born at term, 774 (84%) had both weight and questionnaire data. Replicating a previous finding, both the highest and the lowest levels of deprivation were associated with weight faltering; this was independent of the type of milk feeding. No relation was found with maternal educational status. Maternal eating restraint was unrelated to weight gain. Infants of mothers with high depression symptom scores (EPDS >12) had significantly slower weight gain and increased rates of weight faltering up to 4 months (relative risk 2.5), especially if they came from deprived families, but by 12 months they were no different from the remainder of the cohort. Conclusions: In this setting, social and maternal characteristics had little influence on infants' weight gain, apart from a strong, but transient effect of postnatal depression.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Wright CM, Parkinson KN, Drewett RF

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Archives of Disease in Childhood

Year: 2006

Volume: 91

Issue: 4

Pages: 312-317

ISSN (print): 0003-9888

ISSN (electronic): 1468-2044

Publisher: BMJ Group

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/adc.2005.077750

DOI: 10.1136/adc.2005.077750

PubMed id: 16397011


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