Abstract 613 Poster Session I, Saturday, 5/1 (poster 193)

Fetal growth restriction during pregnancy has been associated with short stature, and growth hormone therapy was therefore advocated for these children. However, adult height is determined by multiple factors. The purpose of this was to assess the body measurements at late adolescence of small-(SGA) compared with appropriate for gestational age (AGA) infants, while controlling for multiple covariates. In a historical prospective cohort study, we matched prospectively-collected perinatal data with information extracted from the army draft medical board. In our study population, SGA was defined as birth weight below the 10th percentile for gestational age. The study population included 13,454 consecutive singleton full-term infants born between 1974 and 1976. We used linear regression analyses to control for the confounding effect of parental education, smoking, maternal age, height, weight and weight gain in pregnancy, ethnic origin, socio-economic status, birth order, diabetes and hypertension during pregnancy, operative delivery, and birth asphyxia. The stature (cm) at 17 yrs of age by size at birth were: (Table) In a logistic regression analysis, infants who were born SGA were not found to be at increased risk for short stature (<10th percentile) at late adolescence: odds ratio 1.32 (95% CI, 0.96-1.81) and 1.13 (95% CI, 0.79-1.63) for male and female, respectively. SGA was significantly associated with a lower mean stature at late adolescence. However, our data revealed that in a multivariate analysis perinatal, parental and socio-demographic factors accounted for this association.

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