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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Neonatology
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1492429
This article is part of the Research Topic Prenatal diagnosis and follow up of children with CNS abnormalities diagnosed in uterus View all 4 articles
Season of conception and neurodevelopmental outcomes in singleton preterm infants less than 29 weeks gestation
Provisionally accepted
Smita Roychoudhury 1
Selphee Tang 2
Shabih U Hasan 3 Kevin Fonseca 3
Abhay Lodha 3
Belal Alshaikh 3 Essa Alawad 3
Kamran Yusuf 3*- 1 McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
- 2 Alberta Health Services, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
- 3 University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
Background: Environmental factors vary with season and affect fetal development. Our objective was to assess impact of season of conception on neurodevelopmental outcomes at 18-21 months corrected age in singleton infants < 29 weeks' gestation.Methods: Retrospective cohort study of infants born between 2006-2015 at a tertiary level NICU.Conception date was calculated as date of birth minus gestational age plus 14 days, and then divided into winter and non-winter months. The primary outcomes were a composite score of < 85 in any of the cognitive, language, or motor components of the Bayley III at 18-21 months corrected gestational age, and scores of < 85 in the individual components. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess confounders.Results: Of the 493 infants eligible, 162 (32.8%) were conceived in winter. There was no difference in the adjusted odds ratios (aORs) of any Bayley III cognitive, language or motor composite scores of < 85 between the two groups. The aORs of cognitive and language scores < 85 in the winter group were significantly higher (2.78 95% CI 1.37-5.65 and 1.97 95% CI 1.07-3.62 respectively).Conclusion: Singleton infants <29 weeks gestation conceived in winter months have worse cognitive and language outcomes. Our results need validation in other and larger cohorts.
Keywords: preterm, conception, winter, neurodevelopment outcomes, Bayley
Received: 06 Sep 2024; Accepted: 27 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Roychoudhury, Tang, Hasan, Fonseca, Lodha, Alshaikh, Alawad and Yusuf. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Kamran Yusuf, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
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