Category: Publications

New research explores the link between baby birthweight, length of pregnancy and future cognitive problems

A new study has explored the link between infant birthweight, gestational age and future cognitive problems.

Published today in JAMA Network Open, scientists have shown how the relative birthweight of infants associates with cognitive performance at five years of age. The results broadly indicate that a large birthweight is good for IQ, but this is relative to gestational age (the week of pregnancy the baby is born – for a healthy nine-month pregnancy this is 40 weeks).

Previous studies had shown that a combination of how heavy a baby is at birth and how early it is born relates to later cognitive abilities, but this study investigates whether the relative birthweight (being born at a lower birthweight relative to how many weeks long a pregnancy is), might also be important for later cognitive performance.

Infants whose birthweight is very low compared with those born at the same gestational age appear more likely to experience developmental problems later at five years of age.

Press release here

Covered by Daily Mirror 24/10/23 here

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Demographic, clinical, and service-use characteristics related to the clinician’s recommendation to transition from child to adult mental health services. 

The service configuration with distinct child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) and adult mental health services (AMHS) may be a barrier to continuity of care.

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Comparing behavioural outcomes in children born extremely preterm between 2006 and 1995: the EPICure studies

Children born extremely preterm (EP) are at increased risk of neurocognitive and behavioural morbidity. Here, we investigate whether behavioural outcomes have changed over time concomitant with increasing survival following EP birth.

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Associations of crying, sleeping, and feeding problems in early childhood and perceived social support with emotional disorders in adulthood.

Maternal under nutrition and low birth weight babies are among the common tragedies of developing countries like Pakistan. Preeclampsia and its significant association with fetal growth restriction due to spiral arteries remodeling and trophoblastic invasion decreases nutritional supply to growing fetus added by maternal under nutrition. This study was designed to see the effects of lipid based nutritional supplements for pregnant and lactating women LNS-PLW on maternal and fetal outcome of pre-eclampsia.

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Child hyperactivity, mother–child negativity, and sibling dyad negativity: A transactional family systems approach.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is among the most common mental disorders in children and adolescents. While most studies in this field have focused on the genetic and neurobiological underpinnings of the disorder, research focusing on the family environment as a critical context contributing toward the manifestation and maintenance of child ADHD symptoms is still less extensive.

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Effects of a Mobile-Based Intervention for Parents of Children With Crying, Sleeping, and Feeding Problems: Randomized Controlled Trial

Excessive crying, sleeping, and feeding problems in early childhood are major stressors that can result in parents feeling socially isolated and having low self-efficacy.

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Parenting knowledge and parenting self-efficacy of mothers with borderline personality disorder and depression: “I know what to do but think I am not doing it”

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a complex mental health condition often associated with previous childhood adversity including maladaptive parenting. When becoming a parent themselves, mothers with BPD have difficulties with various parenting cognitions and practices, but unknown is whether they have appropriate knowledge of sensitive parenting.

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Comparative evaluation of the health utilities index mark 3 and the short form 6D: evidence from an individual participant data meta-analysis of very preterm and very low birthweight adults

The most appropriate preference-based health-related quality of life (HRQoL) instruments for trials or research studies that ascertain the consequences of individuals born very preterm and/or low birthweight (VP/VLBW) are not known. Agreement between the HUI3 and SF-6D multi-attribute utility measures have not been previously investigated for VP/VLBW and normal birthweight or term-born controls. This study examined the agreement between the outputs of the HUI3 and SF-6D measures among adults born VP/VLBW and normal birthweight or term born controls.

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Aberrant allometric scaling of cortical folding in preterm-born adults

A universal allometric scaling law has been proposed to describe cortical folding of the mammalian brain as a function of the product of cortical surface area and the square root of cortical thickness across different mammalian species, including humans.

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Lower hypothalamus subunit volumes link with impaired long-term body weight gain after preterm birth

Preterm birth is associated with an increased risk for impaired body weight gain.

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