Objectives: To evaluate the risk of major congenital anomalies according to infection with or vaccination against covid-19 during the first trimester of pregnancy.
Design: Prospective Nordic registry based study.
Setting: Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.
Objective: To quantify the hospital care for children born with a major congenital anomaly up to 10 years of age compared with children without a congenital anomaly.
Design, Setting And Patients: 79 591 children with congenital anomalies and 2 021 772 children without congenital anomalies born 1995-2014 in six European countries in seven regions covered by congenital anomaly registries were linked to inpatient electronic health records up to their 10th birthday.
Main Outcome Measures: Number of days in hospital and number of surgeries.
Background: Prior studies suggest that poor physical health, accompanied by functional disability, is associated with increased divorce risk. However, this association may depend on gender, the socioeconomic resources of the couple, as well as the social policy and social (in)equality context in which the illness is experienced. This study focuses on neurological conditions, which often have substantial functional consequences.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: The aim is to examine the risk of cerebral palsy, seizures/epilepsy, visual- and hearing impairments, cancer, injury/poisoning and child abuse in children with and without a congenital anomaly up to age 5 and 10 years.
Methods: This is a population-based data linkage cohort study linking information from the European Surveillance of Congenital Anomalies network (EUROCAT) and birth registries to hospital discharge databases. We included 91 504 live born children with major congenital anomalies born from 1995 to 2014 from nine EUROCAT registries in five countries and 1 960 727 live born children without congenital anomalies (reference children).
Objectives: To explore the risk of being prescribed/dispensed medications for respiratory symptoms and breathing difficulties in children with and without congenital anomalies.
Design: A EUROlinkCAT population-based data linkage cohort study. Data on children with and without congenital anomalies were linked to prescription databases to identify children who did/did not receive antiasthmatic prescriptions.
BMJ Med
August 2023
Objectives: To compare the risk of adverse perinatal outcomes according to infants who are born small for gestational age (SGA; <10th centile) or large for gestational age (LGA; >90th centile), as defined by birthweight centiles that are non-customised (ie, standardised by sex and gestational age only) and customised (by sex, gestational age, maternal weight, height, parity, and ethnic group).
Design: Comparative, population based, record linkage study with meta-analysis of results.
Setting: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Wales, and England (city of Bradford), 1986-2019.
Background: Turner syndrome is a rare congenital anomaly caused by complete or partial X chromosome monosomy that may affect mortality and morbidity in childhood.
Methods: This population-based data-linkage cohort study, as part of the EUROlinkCAT project, investigated mortality and morbidity for the first 5 years of life for liveborn European children diagnosed with Turner syndrome. Thirteen population-based registries in 10 countries from the European surveillance of congenital anomalies (EUROCAT) network participated.
Background: Congenital anomalies (CAs) increase the risk of death during infancy and childhood. This study aimed to evaluate the accuracy of using death certificates to estimate the burden of CAs on mortality for children under 10 years old.
Methods: Children born alive with a major CA between 1 January 1995 and 31 December 2014, from 13 population-based European CA registries were linked to mortality records up to their 10th birthday or 31 December 2015, whichever was earlier.
Objective: To evaluate survival, hospitalisations and surgical procedures for children born with Pierre Robin sequence (PRS) across Europe.
Design: Multicentre population-based cohort study.
Setting: Data on 463 live births with PRS from a population of 4 984 793 from 12 EUROCAT congenital anomaly registries.
Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand
June 2023
Introduction: Pregnancy is a risk factor for severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and adverse pregnancy outcomes. We aimed to explore maternal characteristics, pregnancy outcomes, vaccination status, and virus variants among pregnant women admitted to intensive care units (ICU) with severe COVID-19.
Material And Methods: We identified pregnant women admitted to ICU in Sweden (n = 96), Norway (n = 31), and Denmark (n = 16) because of severe COVID-19, from national registers and clinical databases between March 2020 and February 2022 (Denmark), August 2022 (Sweden), or December 2022 (Norway).
Little is known about morbidity for children with rare structural congenital anomalies. This European, population-based data-linkage cohort study analysed data on hospitalisations and surgical procedures for 5948 children born 1995-2014 with 18 rare structural congenital anomalies from nine EUROCAT registries in five countries. In the first year of life, the median length of stay (LOS) ranged from 3.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To investigate the survival to 10 years of age of children with trisomy 13 (T13) and children with trisomy 18 (T18), born 1995-2014.
Design: Population-based cohort study that linked mortality data to data on children born with T13 or T18, including translocations and mosaicisms, from 13 member registries of EUROCAT, a European network for the surveillance of congenital anomalies.
Setting: 13 regions in nine Western European countries.
Aim: Children with congenital anomalies often require surgery but data on the burden of surgery for these children are limited.
Methods: A population-based record-linkage study in Finland, Wales and regions of Denmark, England, Italy and Spain. A total of 91 504 children with congenital anomalies born in 1995-2014 were followed to their tenth birthday or the end of 2015.
Electronic health care databases are increasingly being used to investigate the epidemiology of congenital anomalies (CAs) although there are concerns about their accuracy. The EUROlinkCAT project linked data from eleven EUROCAT registries to electronic hospital databases. The coding of CAs in electronic hospital databases was compared to the (gold standard) codes in the EUROCAT registries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The number of terminations of pregnancy for fetal anomalies in Europe (TOPFA) has increased over recent decades. Therefore, it is important that TOPFAs, in addition to all other birth outcomes, are included in the surveillance of congenital anomalies and in studies on possible teratogenic risks of pregnancy exposures. The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality and the accuracy of codes identifying TOPFA cases in hospital databases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Parental cancer as well as economic hardship in the family during childhood can affect the child negatively. Our aim was to examine the association between the joint exposure to parental cancer and income loss in childhood and the child's socioeconomic position in early adulthood.
Methods: We conducted a register-based prospective cohort study of children born in Denmark between 1978 and 1986 and in Norway between 1979 and 1987.
Objectives: Preterm children are exposed to many medications in neonatal intensive care units, but little is known about the effect of prematurity on medication use throughout infancy and childhood. We examined prescriptions of cardiovascular medication (CVM), antiseizure medication (ASM), antiasthmatic medication and antibiotics issued/dispensed in the first 10 years of life for very and moderately preterm children compared with term.
Design: Population-based data linkage cohort study linking information from birth records to prescription records.
Objective: To report and compare the proportion of children with and without congenital anomalies undergoing gastrostomy for tube feeding in their first 5 years.
Methods: A European, population-based data-linkage cohort study (EUROlinkCAT). Children up to 5 years of age registered in nine EUROCAT registries (national and regional) in six countries and children without congenital anomalies (reference children) living in the same geographical areas were included.
Background: Congenital anomalies are a leading cause of childhood morbidity, but little is known about the long-term outcomes.
Objective: To quantify the burden of disease in childhood for children with congenital anomalies by assessing the risk of hospitalisation, the number of days spent in hospital and proportion of children with extended stays (≥10 days).
Methods: European population-based record-linkage study in 11 regions in eight countries including children with congenital anomalies (EUROCAT children) and without congenital anomalies (reference children) living in the same regions.
Background: Congenital anomalies are a major cause of perinatal, neonatal and infant mortality.
Objectives: The aim was to investigate temporal changes and geographical variation in survival of children with major congenital anomalies (CA) in different European areas.
Methods: In this population-based linkage cohort study, 17 CA registries members of EUROCAT, the European network for the surveillance of CAs, successfully linked data on 115,219 live births with CAs to mortality records.
Aim: Diabetes mellitus type 1 is one of the most common serious chronic diseases in childhood and the incidence is increasing. Insight into risk factors may inform our etiologic understanding of the disease and subsequent prevention. Any socio-economic gradient in disease risk indicates a potential for prevention, since this points towards socially patterned environmental risk factors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: Advances in surgical management strategies have substantially reduced fatality from congenital heart defects (CHD). Decreased infant mortality might be expected, consequentially to result in greater morbidity in older children due to complications later in childhood and adolescence. This study aims to evaluate the use of cardiovascular medication (CVM) as an indicator of disease burden in children born with CHD in the first 10 years of life.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Early maternal cancer and fertility treatment each increase the risk for adverse birth outcomes, but the joint effect of these outcomes has not yet been reported. Thus, the aim was to assess the individual and joint effect of maternal cancer and fertility treatment on the risk for adverse birth outcomes.
Methods: This population-based cohort study included 5487 live-born singletons identified in the Danish Medical Birth Register (1994-2016) of mothers with previous cancer (<40 years) recorded in the Danish Cancer Registry (1955-2014).