ArticleThe Journal of pediatrics2019
Higher Gestational Choline Levels in Maternal Infection Are Protective for Infant Brain Development.
Article in The Journal of pediatrics, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 32 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
32 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 49 citations in OpenAlex.
- Choline During Pregnancy and Child Neurodevelopment: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials and Observational Studies.Nutrients · 2025Pooled it
- Association between Maternal Choline, Fetal Brain Development, and Child Neurocognition: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Human Studies.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2022Pooled it
- Choline, Neurological Development and Brain Function: A Systematic Review Focusing on the First 1000 Days.Nutrients · 2020Pooled it
- Choline status and related health outcomes in humans: A scoping review.Nutrition and health · 2026Article
- Improved red blood cell storage quality of blood from donors carrying the hypermorphic PIMT I120 variant.HemaSphere · 2026Article
- Choline in Adolescent Pregnancy: The Impact on Fetal Brain Development and Long-Term Cognitive Outcomes of Offspring.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Review
- The Effect of Maternal Choline Intake on Offspring Cognition in Adolescence: Protocol for a 14-year Follow-Up of a Randomized Controlled Feeding Trial.JMIR research protocols · 2025Article
- Maternal Nutrition during Pregnancy and Offspring Brain Development: Insights from Neuroimaging.Nutrients · 2024Review
- Intrinsic Infant Hippocampal Function Supports Inhibitory Processing.Developmental psychobiology · 2024Article
- Maternal Plasma Choline during Gestation and Small for Gestational Age Infants.American journal of perinatology · 2024Article
- Developmental Windows for Effects of Choline and Folate on Excitatory and Inhibitory Neurotransmission During Human Gestation.Developmental psychobiology · 2024Article
- Associations between the human immune system and gut microbiome with neurodevelopment in the first 5 years of life: A systematic scoping review.Developmental psychobiology · 2023Article
- Choline - a scoping review for Nordic Nutrition Recommendations 2023.Food & nutrition research · 2023Article
- A review of the auditory-gut-brain axis.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Review
- Choline Improves Neonatal Hypoxia-Ischemia Induced Changes in Male but Not Female Rats.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Prenatal choline, cannabis, and infection, and their association with offspring development of attention and social problems through 4 years of age.Psychological medicine · 2022Article
- Review
- The importance of nutrition in pregnancy and lactation: lifelong consequences.American journal of obstetrics and gynecology · 2022Review
- SAMe, Choline, and Valproic Acid as Possible Epigenetic Drugs: Their Effects in Pregnancy with a Special Emphasis on Animal Studies.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Joint analyses of human milk fatty acids, phospholipids, and choline in association with cognition and temperament traits during the first 6 months of life.Frontiers in nutrition · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issuedCorrigendum.2019
Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo assess whether maternal choline decreases effects of mothers' infections on fetal brain circuit development and on expression of infant behavior at 1 year of age. STUDY
designA cross-sectional study was conducted in a public hospital obstetrics and midwifery service, with prenatal assessments of maternal infection, C-reactive protein, and choline level and postnatal assessments of cerebral neuronal inhibition in 162 newborns. At 1 year, 136 parents completed reports of their child's behavior.
resultsMaternal infection at 16 weeks of gestation, experienced by 41% of mothers, raised mean maternal C-reactive protein (d' = 0.47, P = .002) and decreased the development of cerebral inhibition of auditory response at 1 month of age (d' = 0.39, P < .001). Decreased newborn cerebral inhibition manifested as decreased behavioral self-regulation at 1 year. Greater choline levels in mothers with infections were associated with improved newborn inhibition of auditory cerebral response, mitigating the effect of infection (β = -0.34 [95% CI, -5.35 to -0.14], P = .002). At 1 year of age, children of mothers with infection and greater gestational choline levels had improved development of self-regulation, approaching the level of children of mothers without infection (β = 0.29 [95% CI 0.05-0.54], P = .03).
conclusionsGreater maternal choline, recommended by the American Medical Association as a prenatal supplement, is associated with greater self-regulation among infants who experienced common maternal infections during gestation. Behavioral problems with diminished self-regulation often lead to referrals to pediatricians and might lead to later mental illness.
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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.