SynthesisPloS one2020
Impact of maternal reproductive factors on cancer risks of offspring: A systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies.
Synthesis in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 2 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
6 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Parental and childhood exposures and the risk of retinoblastoma, hepatoblastoma, and germ cell, bone, and soft tissue tumors in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Pooled it
- Risk factors of neuroblastoma: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2025Pooled it
- Early-Life Exposures and Risk of Multiple Myeloma: A Population-Based Case-Control Study in Australia.International journal of cancer · 2026Article
- Ambient Fine Particulate Matter, Residential Greenness, and Childhood Cancer Risk by Trimester of Exposure in Minnesota 2000 to 2014: A Case-Control Study.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2025Article
- Maternal immunization with pneumococcal surface protein A provides the immune memories of offspring against pneumococcal infection.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2023Article
- Perinatal factors, female breast cancer, and associated risk factors in Puerto Rico: evidence from the Atabey epidemiology of breast cancer study.Cancer causes & control : CCC · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors at 8 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundA number of studies have reported on associations between reproductive factors, such as delivery methods, number of birth and breastfeeding, and incidence of cancer in children, but systematic reviews addressing this issue to date have important limitations, and no reviews have addressed the impact of reproductive factors on cancer over the full life course of offspring.
methodsWe performed a comprehensive search in MEDLINE, and Embase up to January 2020 and Web of Science up to 2018 July, including cohort studies reporting the association between maternal reproductive factors of age at birth, birth order, number of births, delivery methods, and breastfeeding duration and cancer in children. Teams of two reviewers independently extracted data and assessed risk of bias. We conducted random effects meta-analyses to estimate summary relative estimates, calculated absolute differences between those with and without risk factors, and used the GRADE approach to evaluate the certainty of evidence.
resultsFor most exposures and most cancers, we found no suggestion of a causal relation. We found low to very low certainty evidence of the following very small possible impact: higher maternal age at birth with adult multiple myeloma and lifetime uterine cervix cancer incidence; lower maternal age at birth with childhood overall cancer mortality (RR = 1.15, 95% CI = 1.01-1.30; AR/10,000 = 1, 95% CI = 0 to 2), adult leukemia and lifetime uterine cervix cancer incidence; higher birth order with adult melanoma, cervix uteri, corpus uteri, thyroid cancer incidence, lifetime lung, corpus uteri, prostate, testis, sarcoma, thyroid cancer incidence; larger number of birth with childhood brain (RR = 1.27, 95% CI = 1.06-1.52; AR/10,000 = 1, 95% CI = 0 to 2), leukemia (RR = 2.11, 95% CI = 1.62-2.75; AR/10,000 = 9, 95% CI = 5 to 14), lymphoma (RR = 4.66, 95% CI = 1.40-15.57; AR/10,000 = 11, 95% CI = 1 to 44) incidence, adult stomach, corpus uteri cancer incidence and lung cancer mortality, lifetime stomach, lung, uterine cervix, uterine corpus, multiple myeloma, testis cancer incidence; Caesarean delivery with childhood kidney cancer incidence (RR = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.01-1.55; AR/10,000 = 0, 95% CI = 0 to 1); and breastfeeding with adult colorectal cancer incidence.
conclusionVery small impacts existed between a number of reproductive factors and cancer incidence and mortality in children and the certainty of evidence was low to very low primarily due to observational design.
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.