Maternal factors during pregnancy influencing maternal, fetal, and childhood outcomes

Abstract

Affecting 8–10% of all pregnancies, it is depressingly common and can leave the newborn with a lifelong legacy of health deficits [8]: from subtle decrements in developmental outcomes for those born “late preterm” to profound disabilities for those born “extremely preterm” (cerebral palsy, chronic lung conditions, major learning problems) [9]. [...]there are no generally effective therapeutic interventions, and predictive biomarkers, while beginning to emerge, are limited. The Tiensuu study moves forward with one strong candidate for such an intervention. [...]their approach of utilizing multiple association strategies to provide further evidence for a particular finding can be applied across various disease phenotypes. [...]there may be a fascinating biological message buried within their apparently plain finding that PCOS is not associated with the birth of babies that are either small or large for gestational age. [...]in a growing number of countries, over half of the pregnant women are now either obese or overweight.