Original ArticleDoes the Relationship between Prenatal Care and Birth Weight Vary by Oral Clefts? Evidence Using South American and United States Samples
Section snippets
Methods
We separately analyzed 2 samples in this study. The first sample included 921 infants with non-isolated CL/P, 1484 infants with isolated CL/P, and 24 046 unaffected infants born between 1996 and 2007 in 111 hospitals in South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Venezuela). The non-isolated group included infants with CL/P who had other birth defects, while the isolated group included infants with only CL/P and no other birth defects. The infants were enrolled
Results
Tables I and II describe the study variables for the ECLAMC and natality samples, respectively. The average BW of non-isolated, isolated, and unaffected infants was 2452, 3094, and 3216 g, respectively, in the ECLAMC sample and 2684, 3202, and 3259 g, respectively, in the natality sample. The difference in BW mean between each cleft group and the unaffected infants was significant (P < .0001 for all comparisons based on a t test). The average number of prenatal visits was 6.2 among affected
Discussion
The study finds that the association between prenatal care and BW varies by the presence of CL/P, with potentially larger benefits to BW for pregnancies affected with CL/P compared with unaffected pregnancies. Furthermore, the association generally is stronger for non-isolated than isolated CL/P forms. Given that infants with CL/P particularly non-isolated forms have significantly lower BW than unaffected infants, the study findings suggest that improving the access of pregnant women at-risk
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Supported by National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research grant (1R03 DE018394). The authors declare no conflicts of interest.