ArticleInternational journal of epidemiology2017
The reversing association between advanced maternal age and child cognitive ability: evidence from three UK birth cohorts.
Article in International journal of epidemiology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed.
- Parental age and its influence on functional dependency and cognitive decline in older adults: a cohort analysis.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2026Article
- Prenatal maternal selenium plasma concentration and motor development in early infancy.The British journal of nutrition · 2026Article
- The Association Between Prenatal Maternal Selenium Concentration and Neurodevelopment in Early Childhood, Results from a Mother-Child Cohort Study.The Journal of nutrition · 2025Article
- Consumption of different combinations of human milk oligosaccharides in the first 6 mo of infancy is positively associated with early cognition at 2 y of age in a longitudinal cohort of Latino children.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2024Article
- Article
- The psychosocial outcomes of older parenthood in early to mid-childhood: a mini-review.Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · 2023Review
- Article
- Age-specific effects on adverse pregnancy outcomes vary by maternal characteristics: a population-based retrospective study in Xiamen, China.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Article
- Maternal prenatal psychological distress and vitamin intake with children's neurocognitive development.Pediatric research · 2022Article
- Association between late maternal age and age-related endophenotypes in the Long Life Family Study.Neuroscience letters · 2022Article
- Maternal childhood trauma and perinatal distress are related to infants' focused attention from 6 to 18 months.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Neighbourhood material deprivation and severe maternal morbidity: a population-based cohort study in Ontario, Canada.BMJ open · 2021Article
- Maternal Plasma 25-Hydroxyvitamin D during Gestation Is Positively Associated with Neurocognitive Development in Offspring at Age 4-6 Years.The Journal of nutrition · 2021Article
- Association Between the COVID-19 Pandemic and Infant Neurodevelopment: A Comparison Before and During COVID-19.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2021Article
- The Association Between Parental Age and Autism-Related Outcomes in Children at High Familial Risk for Autism.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2020Article
- Newborn Health Indicators Associated with Maternal Age during First Pregnancy.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Article
- Is the relationship between men's age at first birth and midlife health changing? Evidence from two British cohorts.SSM - population health · 2019Article
- Fertility History and Physical and Mental Health Changes in European Older Adults.European journal of population = Revue europeenne de demographie · 2019Article
- Maternal Age and Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Puerperium: Obstetric Results.Journal of clinical medicine · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Studies on advanced maternal age-defined here as age 35 or older-and children's cognitive ability report mixed evidence. Previous studies have not analysed how the time period considered in existing studies influences the association. Methods: We analysed trends in the association between maternal age and cognitive ability using data from the 1958 National Child Development Study ( n = 10 969), the 1970 British Cohort Study ( n = 9362) and the 2000-2002 Millennium Cohort Study ( n = 11 600). The dependent variable measures cognitive ability at age 10/11 years. Cognitive scores were standardised to a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. Results: For the 1958-70 cohort studies, maternal ages 35 -39 were negatively associated with children's cognitive ability compared with maternal ages 25-29 (1958 cohort β = -0.06 standard deviations (SD) 95% confidence interval (CI): -0.13, -0.00; 1970 cohort β = -0.12 SD 95% CI: -0.20, -0.03). By contrast, for the 2000-2002 cohort study maternal ages 35-39 were positively associated with cognitive ability (β = 0.16 SD 95% CI: 0.09, 0.23). For maternal ages 40+, the pattern was qualitatively similar. These cross-cohort differences were explained by the fact that in the earlier cohorts advanced maternal age was associated with high parity, whereas in the 2000-2002 cohort it was associated with socioeconomically advantaged family background. Conclusions: The association between advanced maternal age and children's cognitive ability changed from negative in the 1958 and 1970 cohorts to positive in the 2000-2002 cohort because of changing parental characteristics. The time period considered can constitute an important factor in determining the association between maternal age and cognitive ability.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.