Maternal smoking cessation intervention: targeting women and their partners before pregnancy

Estimation of single-year-of-age counts of live births, fetal losses, abortions, and pregnant women for counties of Texas

Objectives

We provide a methodology for estimating counts of single-year-of-age live-births, fetal-losses, abortions, and pregnant women from aggregated age-group counts. As a case study, we estimate counts for the 254 counties of Texas for the year 2010.

Results

We use interpolation to estimate counts of live-births, fetal-losses, and abortions by women of each single-year-of-age for all Texas counties. We then use these counts to estimate the numbers of pregnant women for each single-year-of-age, which were previously available only in aggregate. To support public health policy and planning, we provide single-year-of-age estimates of live-births, fetal-losses, abortions, and pregnant women for all Texas counties in the year 2010, as well as the estimation method source code.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13104-017-2496-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Anthropometric and health-related behavioral factors in the explanation of social inequalities in low birth weight in children with prenatal alcohol exposure

There is evidence for social inequalities in the health status of children with prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE). This study aimed to describe social inequalities in low birth weight (LBW) in children/adolescents with PAE and to examine the contribution of anthropometric and health-related behavioral factors to the explanation of social inequalities. A total of 2,159 participants with parental self-reported moderate to regular PAE (enrolled in the cross-sectional German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents) were examined. At similar levels of PAE, the risk of LBW was significantly increased in subjects with a low socioeconomic status (SES) (adjusted odds ratio (OR) 2.78, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.59, 4.86) and middle SES (adjusted OR 2.04, 95% CI 1.28, 3.24). Maternal height, maternal body mass index (BMI) and smoking during pregnancy mediated the association. The mediating effect of maternal height was 12.5% to 33.7%. Maternal BMI explained 7.9% of the socioeconomic difference in LBW between the high and low SES groups in children with PAE. The mediating effect of smoking during pregnancy was 17.3% to 31.5%. Maternal height, maternal BMI and smoking during pregnancy together explained 24.4% to 60.1% of the socioeconomic differences in LBW in children with PAE. A large proportion of the socioeconomic differences in LBW in children with PAE can be attributed to anthropometric and health-related behavioral factors.

Preconception care: a screening tool for health assessment and risk detection

BACKGROUND

Identification of risk factors for adverse pregnancy outcome is a main component of preconception care, but requires adequate time and knowledge. This study compares self-administered questionnaires to history taking by a physician to evaluate the reliability of such a screening tool for prepregnancy risk detection.

METHODS

One hundred ninety-three women from the outpatient clinic of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the University Medical Center Nijmegen, The Netherlands, were included in a study on preconception care. A Preconceptional Health Assessment form with risk variables pertaining to social, nutritional, medical, infectious disease, medication, reproductive and family history, and two Family History surveys (for the woman and her partner) were completed by 186 couples at home. A physician then orally verified the written answers. Agreement between the written and the oral answers was calculated using kappa statistic.

RESULTS

An excellent agreement level was found for all sections of the Preconceptional Health Assessment form (overall kappa = 0.88) except for nutritional history (kappa = 0.70). The Family History surveys also showed a high agreement level (kappa = 0.92 for women and kappa = 0.90 for men).

CONCLUSIONS

The questionnaires are an accurate screening tool for preconceptional risk factors. We advocate their implementation in various settings to facilitate the provision of preconception care.