Low birth weight deliveries closely associated with reduced cognitive function suggests study
A recent study published in the Neurology journal identified a potential link between a history of low birth weight (LBW) deliveries and cognitive decline in middle-aged women. The findings suggest that mothers who have delivered LBW babies (weighing less than 2,500 grams), may be at an increased risk for cognitive impairment later in life.
The study utilized data from the Nurses' Health Study II which involved female nurses enrolled since 1989. In 2009, the participants provided detailed reproductive histories, and the nurses who completed specific post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) questionnaires were subsequently invited to join a cognition substudy. This substudy included two waves of baseline data collection in 2014 and 2018. This analysis focused on a total of 15,323 women who reported giving birth at age 18 or older and who had valid cognitive assessments.
Cognitive function was evaluated using the self-administered Cogstate Brief Battery which includes tasks measuring psychomotor speed, attention, learning, and working memory. The study team created composite z-scores for these cognitive functions, where higher scores indicated better performance. They employed multivariable linear regression models to analyze the data after adjusting for various factors such as age, race, education, socioeconomic status and pre-pregnancy characteristics.
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