Observational studyRMD open2026
Birth length and perinatal exposures and rheumatoid arthritis risk in the E3N cohort.
Observational study in RMD open, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo examine associations between participants' perinatal factors, including harmonised birth weight and length, prematurity, exposure to maternal smoking during pregnancy and breastfeeding during infancy, and incident rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in a large prospective cohort of French women.
methodsThe Etude Epidémiologique auprès des femmes de la Mutuelle générale de l'Éducation Nationale (E3N) cohort enrolled 98 995 women in 1990. Perinatal data were collected in 2002. Birth weight and length were reported continuously and/or categorically and harmonised according to term status. RA cases were validated using a specific questionnaire. Adjusted HRs (aHRs) and 95% CIs were estimated using Cox proportional hazards models informed by a directed acyclic graph.
resultsAmong 78 473 women, 698 incident RA cases were identified. No evidence of an association was observed between perinatal factors and RA risk in the overall population. Point estimates for large birth length (aHR 1.32, 95% CI 0.97 to 1.78) and preterm birth (aHR 1.34, 95% CI 0.92 to 1.94) were above 1, but CIs included the null value of 1.In sensitivity analyses restricted to women with continuous birth data, a signal for large birth length was observed (aHR 1.98, 95% CI 1.23 to 3.19), whereas no such signal was detected when using categorised self-reported measures.
conclusionsIn this large prospective cohort, most perinatal factors were not associated with RA risk in adulthood. A signal related to larger birth length emerged only in selected analyses based on more precise exposure assessment and should be interpreted cautiously. These findings are hypothesis-generating and warrant replication in independent cohorts using prospectively measured perinatal data. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER:
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.