â??U.S. newborns have gotten smaller during the past 15 years, reversing a decades-long upward trend in birth weights, Harvard researchers say.
Researchers at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute’s department of population medicine, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, analyzed data on birth weight, maternal and neonatal characteristics, obstetric care and other trends from the National Center for Health Statistics Natality Data Sets. The researchers looked at data from 36,827,828 U.S. babies born at full-term between 1990 and 2005.
“Previous studies [covering periods into the early 1990s] have shown that birth weights have increased steadily during the past half-century,” Emily Oken of Harvard Medical School said in a statement. “We expected to see a continuation of those increases.”
Instead, Oken and her colleagues found birth weights had decreased by an average of 1.83 ounces between 1990 and 2005.
The study, published in February’s Obstetrics & Gynecology, also found white, well-educated, married women who didn’t smoke, received early prenatal care and delivered vaginally with no complications had babies who weighed an average of 2.78 ounces less at birth during the study period.
The causes of this decline remain unclear and babies born small not only face short-term complications but increased risk as adults.
Future research may identify other factors not included in the current data that might contribute to lower birth weight, such as trends in mothers’ diets, physical activity, stress and exposure to environmental toxins.â??
I think it could be all the crap everyone is on. Anti-depressants, smoking (I know people that have smoked all through pregnancy, with no care for the baby because it’s “hard to quit”), same with drinking, high blood pressure meds, statins, crack, poor diet, etc.
[quote]ucallthatbass wrote:
I think it could be all the crap everyone is on. Anti-depressants, smoking (I know people that have smoked all through pregnancy, with no care for the baby because it’s “hard to quit”), same with drinking, high blood pressure meds, statins, crack, poor diet, etc.[/quote]
I would agree with this. There’s a pill for everything these days, and instead of doing it old skool, you just down a pill 3 times a day, everyday, after breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
This was covered during on of my statistics classes over false statisitics… At any rate, if you look at the increased rate of pregency aids in America over the last 30+ years it has increased over 30 times.
As a result people have more babies at later ages, in addition they tend to have more prematurely born babies or twins (a lot of the fertility drugs induce multiple eggs). As a result you have a very steep increase in premature and small babies…
That would be my guess at least… Also, look at the average age of mothers versus 50 years ago, it went from 18 → 24 / 26 or something and the 30-35 catagorey did not really exist in the 1950-1960’s and that group is much larger now then ever in history…
Also, if you read the article is points out a vaginal birth as the only ones counted. Now adays everyone I know who is having children is getting a C-section so I am sure that also skews the results…
I love how its always some devious reason like toxins, drugs and what not that everyone jumps to as the reason rather then something more obvious…
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Breast feeding has become less common over time.[/quote]
Speaking of breast feeding, years ago a couple I know just had a baby. I asked the mother if she would be breast feeding. She said, “No, I’m not a cow! My breasts are for my husband anyway!”
[quote]MaximusB wrote:
Breast feeding has become less common over time.[/quote]
Speaking of breast feeding, years ago a couple I know just had a baby. I asked the mother if she would be breast feeding. She said, “No, I’m not a cow! My breasts are for my husband anyway!”
[/quote]
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
Bad for baby
Good for Hubby (if he’s likes his wife’s milk)
I’m sure what Ratchet said is spot on. I think the biggest contributors to the decrease in birth weight is that big babies get cut out and are not counted. The greater frequency of twins probably has some impact.
How the stats are used (manipulated) is always a huge factor, and in an example like this, I think an agenda has to be behind it, because whoever published those numbers with that claim, must be aware of those skewing factors.
[quote]Petermus wrote:
I was thinking it could be diet…but were fatter then ever…hmm…[/quote]
Two seperate issues. You get fat off quantity, you grow tall and strong from quality.[/quote]
Well, you need quantity to grow big and strong too, but I see your point.[/quote]
Right, I’m talking about the difference between 5000 calories of steak, and 5000 calories of sugar and starch. People are eating more, quantity wise, but the quality has gone to hell. People are obese, yet malnurished.