By the time premature babies reach 14 to 19 years of age, they have, on average, a similar body mass index to peers born at term, according to an analysis of more than 250,000 people
Health
26 January 2023
Babies born prematurely can be underweight, but seem to catch up with their peers in their teens Ivan Jekic/Getty Images
People born prematurely are likely to have similar body mass indexes (BMIs) when they reach adolescence to people who were born at term.
To determine what effect the amount of time spent in the uterus has on a person’s body weight in childhood and adolescence, Johan Vinther at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and his colleagues analysed data collected across 16 studies conducted in Europe, North America and Australia.
These studies included data on the gestation age of newborn children and follow-up data on their subsequent heights and weights over several years. A total of more than 250,000 children were included from across the studies, all born between 1985 and 2017.
Vinther and his colleagues took the height and weight data from each person and calculated their BMIs at various ages.
“Body size is a decent proxy for physical health,” says Vinther. “Though it’s not the only measure.”
The researchers found that while people born before 37 weeks of pregnancy, also known as preterm, were more likely to have a lower BMI in childhood than people born after 37 weeks, this difference disappeared between the ages of 14 and 19.
“Our study suggests that preterm individuals gain more weight in childhood, relatively, compared to people born at term,” says Vinther. It is unclear why, he adds.
The findings don’t necessarily mean children born preterm will always reach healthy body weights in adolescence, says Vinther. Other factors such as the BMI and education level of the mother will play a role, he says.
The results are based on people in high-income countries. “We don’t really know what this would look like in lower-income countries,” says Vinther. The team didn’t look at the specific effect of sex or ethnicity on the results.
Neena Modi at Imperial College London says the findings corroborate several long-running studies on this issue from across the world. However, recent work has shown that very preterm individuals are more likely to develop chronic conditions that are exacerbated by being overweight, she says.
“The critical health message is to ensure preterm individuals, and their parents and clinicians, are aware of the importance of maintaining a healthy body weight,” she says.
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Source link A study conducted at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) has determined that the body mass index (BMI) of adolescents born preterm is similar to that of those born at full-term. The study, published in the July 2019 issue of The Journal of Pediatrics, is the first of its kind to draw this specific conclusion.
Researchers observed the BMI of 285 adolescents, of whom 65 had been born before 37 weeks of gestation and the remaining 220 had been born at full-term. Data were collected from a wide range of medical and socio-demographic sources, including detailed medical records, questionnaires and laboratory results.
Based on this extensive collection of information, the team of researchers concluded that preterm adolescents and their peers who were born at full-term had similar BMI values. Particularly, the mean BMI of preterm adolescents was similar to that of term-born ones, with no statistically significant differences. Interestingly, the patterns of obesity and cardiovascular risk were identical in the two groups, suggesting that those born preterm are not at an increased risk of obesity or cardiovascular disease.
The team of investigators suggested that the high-quality of prenatal and postnatal care could have influenced their results, and underlined the importance of weight management follow-up for preterm and full-term adolescents.
This investigation was supported by the RI-MUHC and the Quebec government. The authors noted that the data available to them may have limited the conclusions that could be drawn from their results. Nonetheless, the study strongly suggests that any potential effects of preterm birth do not put preterm adolescents at a disadvantage when it comes to BMI, obesity, or cardiovascular risk.
