ArticleAmerican journal of epidemiology2016
Race Disparities and Decreasing Birth Weight: Are All Babies Getting Smaller?
Article in American journal of epidemiology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed.
- Birth-size reference charts for normal nursery newborns between 35.0 and 41.6 weeks.BMC pediatrics · 2026Article
- Disparities in Allostatic Load Among Different Races: A Comprehensive Scoping Review.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2025Review
- Perinatal outcomes of women with recurrent pregnancy loss undergoing frozen embryo transfer from the Society of Assisted Reproductive Technology database.Fertility and sterility · 2025Article
- A Retrospective Analysis Evaluating the Impact of Neighborhood Deprivation on Birth Weight in Phoenix, Arizona.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Greenspace Morphology and Preterm Birth: A State-Wide Study in Georgia, United States (2001-2016).Environmental health perspectives · 2024Article
- Birth anthropometry among three Asian racial groups in Singapore: proposed new growth charts.Archives of disease in childhood · 2023Observational
- The Effect of Maternal Race, Ethnicity, and Nativity on Macrosomia Among Infants Born in the United States.Cureus · 2023Article
- Explaining the Association Between Fetal Growth and Childhood ADHD Symptoms: Cross-cohort Replication.Research on child and adolescent psychopathology · 2023Article
- Poultry Concentrated Animal-Feeding Operations on the Eastern Shore, Virginia, and Geospatial Associations with Adverse Birth Outcomes.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Exploration of Diet Quality by Obesity Severity in Association with Gestational Weight Gain and Distal Gut Microbiota in Pregnant African American Women: Opportunities for Intervention.Maternal and child health journal · 2022Article
- Factors associated with small- and large-for-gestational-age in socioeconomically vulnerable individuals in the 100 Million Brazilian Cohort.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2021Article
- A population-based case-control study of the association between weather-related extreme heat events and low birthweight.Journal of developmental origins of health and disease · 2021Article
- Early origins of socioeconomic inequalities in chronic inflammation: Evaluating the contributions of low birth weight and short breastfeeding.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2021Article
- Regional trends in birth weight in low- and middle-income countries 2013-2018.Reproductive health · 2020Observational
- Role of HIV and Antiretroviral Therapy on the Expression of Placental Transporters in Women with HIV.The AAPS journal · 2020Article
- Intergenerational Change in Birthweight: Effects of Foreign-born Status and Race/Ethnicity.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2020Article
- Worth the Weight? Recent Trends in Obstetric Practices, Gestational Age, and Birth Weight in the United States.Demography · 2020Article
- Effect of Prenatal Smoke Exposure on Birth Weight: The Moderating Role of Maternal Depressive Symptoms.Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco · 2020Article
- Personal Versus Group Experiences of Racism and Risk of Delivering a Small-for-Gestational Age Infant in African American Women: a Life Course Perspective.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2019Article
- Toward population impact from early childhood psychological interventions.The American psychologist · 2018Article
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Abstract
The mean infant birth weight in the United States increased for decades, but it might now be decreasing. Given race disparities in fetal growth, we explored race-specific trends in birth weight at Magee-Womens Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1997 to 2011. Among singleton births delivered at 37-41 weeks (n = 70,607), we evaluated the proportions who were small for gestational age and large for gestational age and changes in mean birth weights over time. Results were stratified by maternal race/ethnicity. Since 1997, the number of infants born small for their gestational ages increased (8.7%-9.9%), whereas the number born large for their gestational ages decreased (8.9%-7.7%). After adjustment for gestational week at birth, maternal characteristics, and pregnancy conditions, birth weight decreased by 2.20 g per year (P < 0.0001). Decreases were greater for spontaneous births. Reductions were significantly greater in infants born to African-American women than in those born to white women (-3.78 vs. -1.88 per year; P for interaction = 0.010). Quantile regression models indicated that birth weight decreased across the entire distribution, but reductions among infants born to African-American women were limited to those in the upper quartile after accounting for maternal factors. Limiting the analysis to low-risk women eliminated birth weight reductions. Birth weight has decreased in recent years, and reductions were greater in infants born to African-American women. These trends might be explained by accumulation of risk factors such as hypertension and prepregnancy obesity that disproportionately affect African-American women. Our results raise the possibility of worsening race disparities in fetal growth.
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Registered trials
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