Top

Published in:

01-03-2018

Fathers Count: The Impact of Paternal Risk Factors on Birth Outcomes

Authors: Ying Meng, Susan W. Groth

Published in: Maternal and Child Health Journal | Issue 3/2018

Abstract

Objective To determine the contribution of paternal factors to the risk of adverse birth outcomes. Methods This is a retrospective cross-sectional analysis using birth certificate data from 2004 to 2015 retrieved from the Finger Lakes Regional Perinatal Data System. Primiparous women with singleton pregnancies were analyzed in the study. Two multivariate logistic regression models were conducted to assess potential paternal risk factors including age, race/ethnicity, and education on four birth outcomes, including preterm birth (PTB), low birthweight (LBW), high birthweight (HBW), and small for gestational age (SGA). Results A total of 36,731 singleton births were included in the analysis. Less paternal education was significantly related to an elevated risk of PTB, LBW, and SGA, even after adjustment for maternal demographic, medical, and lifestyle factors (P < 0.05). Paternal race/ethnicity was also significantly associated with all four birth outcomes (P < 0.05) while controlling for maternal factors. Older paternal age was associated with increased odds (OR 1.012, 95% CI 1.003–1.022) of LBW. Maternal race/ethnicity partially mediated the association of paternal race/ethnicity with HBW and SGA. Maternal education partially mediated the relationship between paternal education and SGA. Conclusion Paternal factors were important predictors of adverse birth outcomes. Our results support the inclusion of fathers in future studies and clinical programs aimed at reducing adverse birth outcomes.

Alio, A. P., Salihu, H. M., McIntosh, C., August, E. M., Weldeselasse, H., Sanchez, E., & Mbah, A. K. (2012). The effect of paternal age on fetal birth outcomes. American Journal of Men’s Health, 6(5), 427–435.CrossRefPubMed

Banderali, G., Martelli, A., Landi, M., Moretti, F., Betti, F., Radaelli, G., … Verduci, E. (2015). Short and long term health effects of parental tobacco smoking during pregnancy and lactation: A descriptive review. Journal of Translational Medicine, 13, 327. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12967-015-0690-y.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Buis, M. L. (2010). Direct and indirect effects in a logit model. Stata Journal, 10, 11–29.PubMedPubMedCentral

Cheng, E. R., Rifas-Shiman, S. L., Perkins, M. E., Rich-Edwards, J. W., Gillman, M. W., Wright, R., Taveras, E. M., … Clark, D., Royer, H. (2016). The influence of antenatal partner support on pregnancy outcomes. Journal of Women’s Health, 25(7), 672–679.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Clark, D., & Royer, H. (2013). The effect of education on adult mortality and health: Evidence from Britain. American Economic Review, 103(6), 2087–2120.CrossRef

Constantinof, A., Moisiadis, V. G., & Matthews, S. G. (2016). Programming of stress pathways: A transgenerational perspective. The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 160, 175–180.CrossRefPubMed

Fulda, K. G., Kurian, A. K., Balyakina, E., & Moerbe, M. M. (2014). Paternal race/ethnicity and very low birth weight. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 14, 385.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Galobardes, B., Shaw, M., Lawlor, D. A., Lynch, J. W., & Davey Smith, G. (2006). Indicators of socioeconomic position (part 1). Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 60(1), 7–12.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Giscombe, C. L., & Lobel, M. (2005). Explaining disproportionately high rates of adverse birth outcomes among african americans: The impact of stress, racism, and related factors in pregnancy. Psychological Bulletin, 131(5), 662–683.CrossRefPubMed

Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. New York: Guiford Press.

Hurley, E. G., & DeFranco, E. A. (2017). Influence of paternal age on perinatal outcomes. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajog.2017.07.034 PubMed

Katz, J., Lee, A. C., Kozuki, N., Lawn, J. E., Cousens, S., & Blencowe, H., … CHERG Small-for-Gestational-Age-Preterm Birth Working Group. (2013). Mortality risk in preterm and small-for-gestational-age infants in low-income and middle-income countries: A pooled country analysis. Lancet , 382(9890), 417–425.

Leung, J. Y., Leung, G. M., & Schooling, C. M. (2016). Socioeconomic disparities in preterm birth and birth weight in a non-western developed setting: Evidence from Hong Kong’s ‘children of 1997’ birth cohort. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 70(11), 1074–1081.CrossRefPubMed

Liu, C., Cnattingius, S., Bergstrom, M., Ostberg, V., & Hjern, A. (2016). Prenatal parental depression and preterm birth: A national cohort study. BJOG: An International. Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 123(12), 1973–1982.CrossRef

Ma, S. (2008). Paternal race/ethnicity and birth outcomes. American Journal of Public Health, 98(12), 2285–2292. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2007.117127.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Matthews, T. J., MacDorman, M. F., & Thoma, M. E. (2015). Infant mortality statistics from the 2013 period linked Birth/Infant death data set. National Vital Statistics Reports: From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. National Vital Statistics System, 64(9), 1–30.

Miletic, T., Stoini, E., Mikulandra, F., Tadin, I., Roje, D., & Milic, N. (2007). Effect of parental anthropometric parameters on neonatal birth weight and birth length. Collegium Antropologicum, 31(4), 993–997.PubMed

Morken, N. H., Kallen, K., & Jacobsson, B. (2014). Predicting risk of spontaneous preterm delivery in women with a singleton pregnancy. Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, 28(1), 11–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/ppe.12087.CrossRefPubMed

Mortensen, L. H. (2013). Socioeconomic inequality in birth weight and gestational age in denmark 1996–2007: Using a family-based approach to explore alternative explanations. Social Science & Medicine, 76(1), 1–7.CrossRef

Mortensen, L. H., Diderichsen, F., Smith, G. D., & Andersen, A. M. (2009). The social gradient in birthweight at term: Quantification of the mediating role of maternal smoking and body mass index. Human Reproduction, 24(10), 2629–2635.CrossRefPubMed

Mutsaerts, M. A., Groen, H., Buiter-Van der Meer, A., Sijtsma, A., Sauer, P. J., Land, J. A., … Hoek, A. (2014). Effects of paternal and maternal lifestyle factors on pregnancy complications and perinatal outcome. A population-based birth-cohort study: The GECKO drenthe cohort. Human Reproduction, 29(4), 824–834.CrossRefPubMed

Myklestad, K., Vatten, L. J., Magnussen, E. B., Salvesen, K. A., & Romundstad, P. R. (2013). Do parental heights influence pregnancy length?: A population-based prospective study, HUNT 2. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 13, 33.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Nicolaidis, C., Ko, C. W., Saha, S., & Koepsell, T. D. (2004). Racial discrepancies in the association between paternal vs. maternal educational level and risk of low birthweight in washington state. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 4(1), 10.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

O’Neill, K. A., Murphy, M. F., Bunch, K. J., Puumala, S. E., Carozza, S. E., Chow, E. J., … Spector, L. G. (2015). Infant birthweight and risk of childhood cancer: International population-based case control studies of 40 000 cases. International Journal of Epidemiology, 44(1), 153–168.CrossRefPubMed

Oken, E., Kleinman, K. P., Rich-Edwards, J., & Gillman, M. W. (2003). A nearly continuous measure of birth weight for gestational age using a United States national reference. BMC Pediatrics, 3, 6. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2431-3-6.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Parker, J. D., Schoendorf, K. C., & Kiely, J. L. (1994). Associations between measures of socioeconomic status and low birth weight, small for gestational age, and premature delivery in the United States. Annals of Epidemiology, 4(4), 271–278.CrossRefPubMed

Reichman, N. E., & Teitler, J. O. (2006). Paternal age as a risk factor for low birthweight. American Journal of Public Health, 96(5), 862–866.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Salihu, H. M., Das, R., Morton, L., Huang, H., Paothong, A., Wilson, R. E., … Marty, P. J. (2016). Racial differences in DNA-methylation of CpG sites within preterm-promoting genes and gene variants. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 20(8), 1680–1687.CrossRefPubMed

Shapiro, G. D., Bushnik, T., Sheppard, A. J., Kramer, M. S., Kaufman, J. S., & Yang, S. (2017). Paternal education and adverse birth outcomes in canada. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 71(1), 67–72.CrossRefPubMed

Simonsen, S. E., Lyon, J. L., Stanford, J. B., Porucznik, C. A., Esplin, M. S., & Varner, M. W. (2013). Risk factors for recurrent preterm birth in multiparous utah women: A historical cohort study. BJOG:. An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 120(7), 863–872.CrossRef

Srinivasjois, R. M., Shah, S., Shah, P. S. & Knowledge Synthesis Group on Determinants of Preterm/LBW Births. (2012). Biracial couples and adverse birth outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analyses. Acta Obstetricia Et Gynecologica Scandinavica, 91(10), 1134–1146.CrossRefPubMed

Thota, C., Menon, R., Wentz, M. J., Fortunato, S. J., Bartlett, J., Drobek, C. O., … Al-Hendy, A. (2012). A single-nucleotide polymorphism in the fetal catechol-O-methyltransferase gene is associated with spontaneous preterm birth in African Americans. Reproductive Sciences, 19(2), 135–142.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Thurber, K. A., Dobbins, T., Kirk, M., Dance, P., & Banwell, C. (2015). Early life predictors of increased body mass index among indigenous Australian children. PLoS ONE, 10(6), e0130039.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Van Wagenen, S. A., Magnusson, B. M., & Neiger, B. L. (2015). Attitudes toward breastfeeding among an internet panel of U.S. males aged 21–44. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 19(9), 2020–2028.CrossRefPubMed

Yamashita, T., & Kunkel, S. R. (2015). An international comparison of the association among literacy, education, and health across the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Italy, Norway, and Bermuda: Implications for health disparities. Journal of Health Communication, 20(4), 406–415.CrossRefPubMed

Yang, Q., Zhao, F., Dai, S., Zhang, N., Zhao, W., Bai, R., & Sun, Y. (2015). Sperm telomere length is positively associated with the quality of early embryonic development. Human Reproduction, 30(8), 1876–1881.CrossRefPubMed

Yuan, S., Schuster, A., Tang, C., Yu, T., Ortogero, N., Bao, J., … Yan, W. (2016). Sperm-borne miRNAs and endo-siRNAs are important for fertilization and preimplantation embryonic development. Development, 143(4), 635–647.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Title: Fathers Count: The Impact of Paternal Risk Factors on Birth Outcomes
Authors: Ying Meng
Susan W. Groth
Publication date: 01-03-2018
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Maternal and Child Health Journal / Issue 3/2018
Print ISSN: 1092-7875
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6628
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-017-2407-8

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on sleep in brain health

Springer Medicine

Fathers Count: The Impact of Paternal Risk Factors on Birth Outcomes

Abstract

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on sleep in brain health

Springer Medicine

Abstract

Please log in to get access to this content

Other articles of this Issue 3/2018

Relationship of Adverse Family Experiences to Resilience and School Engagement Among Vermont Youth

Body Satisfaction During Pregnancy: The Role of Health-Related Habit Strength

The Joint Effects of Antenatal Steroids and Gestational Age on Improved Outcomes in Neonates

Infant Health and Future Childhood Adversity

Breastfeeding Duration and the Theory of Planned Behavior and Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Framework: A Systematic Review of Observational Studies

Comparing Different Partograph Designs for Use in Standard Labor Care: A Pilot Randomized Trial