Effect of Correcting the Postnatal Age of Preterm-Born Children on Measures of Associations Between Infant Length-for-Age z Scores and Mid-Childhood Outcomes.

ABSTRACT: Child growth standards are commonly used to derive age- and sex-standardized anthropometric indices but are often inappropriately applied to preterm-born children (<37 weeks of gestational age (GA)) in epidemiology studies. Using the 2004 Pelotas Birth Cohort, we examined the impact of correcting for GA in the application of child growth standards on the magnitude and direction of associations in 2 a priori-selected exposure-outcome scenarios: infant length-for-age z score (LAZ) and mid-childhood body mass index (scenario A), and infant LAZ and mid-childhood intelligence quotient (scenario B). GA was a confounder that had a strong (scenario A) or weak (scenario B) association with the outcome. Compared with uncorrected postnatal age, using GA-corrected postnatal age attenuated the magnitud

SUBMITTER: Perumal N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7936033 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature