Impact of Perinatal Different Intrauterine Environments on Child Growth and Development: Planning and Baseline Data for a Cohort Study

Abstract

Background Several studies have shown that exposure of the fetus and newborn to prenatal and perinatal events, respectively, may influence the health outcomes of the child throughout their life cycle. Objective This study aimed to increase the knowledge on the impact of different intrauterine environments on child growth and development, as we know that pregnancy and early years are a window of opportunity for health promotion and prevention interventions of diseases. Methods The recruitment occurred 24 to 48 hours after delivery and involved mothers and their newborns in 2 public hospitals in Porto Alegre, Brazil, from December 2011 to January 2016. The mothers-newborns dyads were allocated to 5 groups: diabetes mellitus, mothers with a clinical diagnosis of diabetes; systemic arterial hypertension (SAH), mothers with a clinical diagnosis of systematic arterial hypertensive disease during pregnancy; maternal smoking, mothers who smoked at any moment of gestation; small for gestational age (SGA), mothers with SGA newborns because of intrauterine growth restriction; and control, mothers without the clinical characteristics previously mentioned. Several protocols and anthropometric measurements were applied in the interviews at immediate postpartum and 7 and 15 days and 1, 3, and 6 months after birth. For this study, we analyzed only data collected during postpartum interviews. The statistical analyses were performed using Pearson chi-square test, Mann-Whitney test, or Kruskal-Wallis test with Dunn post hoc. The significance level was set at 5%. The Hospital Ethics and Research Committees approved the study. Results Of the 485 eligible mothers-newborns dyads, 400 agreed to participate (82.5%, 400/485). As expected, newborns from the SGA group had significantly lower birth weight, smaller stature, and lower cephalic perimeter (P<.001). This group also had the highest percentage of primiparous women in comparison with other groups (P=.005) except for control. Mothers from the SAH group had the highest mean age, the highest percentage of cesarean sections, and presented greater gestational weight gain. Conclusions In this study, we describe the planning and structure for the systematic follow-up of mother-newborn dyads in the first 6 months after birth, considering the important demographic and epidemiological transition scenario in Brazil. The results of this prospective longitudinal study may provide a better understanding of the causal mechanisms involved in health and life course disease related to different adverse intrauterine environments.