You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Research report
Residence change during the first trimester of pregnancy and adverse birth outcomes
  1. Julia C Bond1,
  2. Amanda L Mancenido1,
  3. Divya M Patil1,
  4. Seth S Rowley1,
  5. Jack Goldberg1,
  6. Alyson J Littman1,2,3
  1. 1 Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington School of Public Health, Seattle, Washington, USA
  2. 2 Seattle Epidemiologic Research and Information Center, Department of Veterans Affairs, Seattle, Washington, USA
  3. 3 VA Puget Sound, Health Services Research and Development Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value-Driven Care, Seattle, WA, USA
  1. Correspondence to Julia C Bond, Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington School of Public Health, Seattle, WA 98195, USA; jcbond{at}uw.edu

Abstract

Background There are few published studies evaluating the impact of perinatal residence change on infant outcomes and whether these associations differ by socioeconomic status.

Methods We conducted a population-based cohort study using Washington State birth certificate data from 2007 to 2014 to assess whether women who moved during the first trimester of pregnancy (n=28 011) had a higher risk of low birth weight, preterm birth and small for gestational age than women who did not move during the first trimester (n=112 367). ‘Non-first-trimester movers’ were frequency matched 4:1 to movers by year. We used generalised linear models to calculate risk ratios and risk differences adjusted for maternal age, race, marital status, parity, education, smoking, income and insurance payer for the birth. We also stratified analyses by variables related to socioeconomic status to see whether associations differed across socioeconomic strata.

Results Moving in the first trimester was associated with an increased risk of low birth weight (6.4% vs 4.5%, adjusted risk ratio 1.37 (95% CI 1.29 to 1.45)) and preterm birth (9.1% vs 6.4%, adjusted risk ratio 1.42 (95% CI 1.36 to 1.49)) and a slight increased risk of small for gestational age (9.8% vs 8.7%, adjusted risk ratio 1.09 (95% CI 1.00 to 1.09)). Residence change was associated with low birth weight and preterm birth in all socioeconomic strata.

Conclusion Moving during the first trimester of pregnancy may be a risk factor for adverse birth outcomes in US women. Healthcare providers may want to consider screening for plans to move and offering support.

  • low birth weight
  • maternal stress
  • moving
  • pregnancy
  • prenatal stress
  • preterm birth
  • residence change

https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2018-211937

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Contributors All authors contributed to the conceptual development of the research, review of analysis and interpretation of results. Data acquisition was completed by SSR. The analytical work was conducted primarily by JCB with assistance from ALM and supervision by AJL. JCB drafted the article with assistance from AJL. All authors critically revised the article and approved the final version for publication.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Ethics approval Washington State Institutional Review Board Project E-021617.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data availability statement Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available.