SynthesisArchives of disease in childhood2023
Effects of size at birth on health, growth and developmental outcomes in children up to age 18: an umbrella review.
Synthesis in Archives of disease in childhood, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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
15 citing papers in PubMed, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Reversible aberrancies in gut microbiome of moderate and late preterm infants: results from a randomized, controlled trial.Gut microbes · 2023Trial
- Determinants of small vulnerable newborn births in two rural community-based cohorts in India: a prospective study.The Lancet regional health. Southeast Asia · 2026Article
- Impact of birth weight on long-term growth and development in children: evidence from a nationwide cohort study.BMC pediatrics · 2026Article
- Association between size at birth, rapid weight gain in infancy, and overweight status among Palestinian refugees under 5 years old: a retrospective cohort study.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2026Article
- Neonatal mortality risk of large-for-gestational-age and macrosomic live births in 15 countries, including 115.6 million nationwide linked records, 2000-2020.BJOG : an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology · 2025Article
- Early Life Exposure To Multiple Metals, Nutrition, and Growth in Children - A Scoping Review.Current environmental health reports · 2025Article
- Protective versus Risk Factors for 18-month Outcomes in a multi-decade sample of preterm infants age 23-30 weeks.Medical research archives · 2025Article
- Author correction: Association between exposure to particulate matter during pregnancy and birthweight: A systematic review and a meta-analysis of birth cohort studies.Journal of biomedical research · 2025Article
- Exploratory Evaluation of Circulating Microbiota-Derived Corisin Levels in Women with Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Malnutrition in infants aged under 6 months: prevalence and anthropometric assessment - analysis of 56 low- and middle-income country DHS datasets.BMJ global health · 2025Article
- Birth weight and school absences and attainment: a longitudinal linked cohort study of compulsory schooling in England.Archives of disease in childhood · 2025Article
- Prenatal polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons exposure and child growth and adiposity: A longitudinal study.Environmental research · 2025Article
- Post-term births as a risk factor for small for gestational age births and infant mortality in Brazil, Mexico, and Palestinian refugees: An analysis of electronic birth records.Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · 2025Article
- Article
- Establishment of a birth-to-education cohort of 1 million Palestinian refugees using electronic medical records and electronic education records.International journal of population data science · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSize at birth, an indicator of intrauterine growth, has been studied extensively in relation to subsequent health, growth and developmental outcomes. Our umbrella review synthesises evidence from systematic reviews and meta-analyses on the effects of size at birth on subsequent health, growth and development in children and adolescents up to age 18, and identifies gaps.
methodsWe searched five databases from inception to mid-July 2021 to identify eligible systematic reviews and meta-analyses. For each meta-analysis, we extracted data on the exposures and outcomes measured and the strength of the association.
findingsWe screened 16 641 articles and identified 302 systematic reviews. The literature operationalised size at birth (birth weight and/or gestation) in 12 ways. There were 1041 meta-analyses of associations between size at birth and 67 outcomes. Thirteen outcomes had no meta-analysis.Small size at birth was examined for 50 outcomes and was associated with over half of these (32 of 50); continuous/post-term/large size at birth was examined for 35 outcomes and was consistently associated with 11 of the 35 outcomes. Seventy-three meta-analyses (in 11 reviews) compared risks by size for gestational age (GA), stratified by preterm and term. Prematurity mechanisms were the key aetiologies linked to mortality and cognitive development, while intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), manifesting as small for GA, was primarily linked to underweight and stunting.
interpretationFuture reviews should use methodologically sound comparators to further understand aetiological mechanisms linking IUGR and prematurity to subsequent outcomes. Future research should focus on understudied exposures (large size at birth and size at birth stratified by gestation), gaps in outcomes (specifically those without reviews or meta-analysis and stratified by age group of children) and neglected populations. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42021268843.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic 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 Socratic graph.