The Effect of Parental Weight and Genetics on the Body Mass Index of Very Low Birth Weight Infants as They Reach School Age.

Background: Prematurely born individuals are usually of low or normal weight in childhood; in adulthood, however, their probability of being overweight is twice that of persons born at full term. There is not yet any way to predict the weight development of premature babies.

Methods: A polygenic BMI score (BMI = body-mass index), calculated from the often very small individual effects of more than 2 million genetic variants, was recently described for adults.

The Survey of Neonates in Pomerania: Design, Recruitment and Follow-Up of the Second Cohort, 2013-2017.

Background: The Survey of Neonates in Pomerania (SNiP) is a birth cohort study conducted in Western Pomerania, Germany. SNiP-I recruited participants at birth between the years 2002 and 2008 (5801 inclusions). Since SNiP-I, population sociodemographic characteristics and the prevalence of early exposures, including overweight and gestational diabetes (GDM), have changed.

Infants < 90 days of age with late-onset sepsis display disturbances of the microbiome-immunity interplay.

Objective: We hypothesized that previously healthy infants < 90 days of age with late-onset sepsis (LOS) have disturbances of the gut microbiome with yet undefined specific immunological patterns.

Methods: We performed a prospective single-center convenience sample study between January 2019 and July 2021 in a case-control design. Routine diagnostics included conventional cultures (blood, cerebrospinal fluid, urine), PCRs and inflammatory markers in infants aged < 90 days with clinical LOS.

Language barriers and mental health problems of preschool children born very preterm in Germany.

Aim: We assessed whether behavioural and emotional problems of 5- to 6-year-old preschool children born very preterm (<32 weeks' gestation) are associated with an immigrant background and linguistic distance of their first language to the host country's official language, German.

Method: This is an observational longitudinal cohort study. Data are from the national multicentre German Neonatal Network cohort, including all very preterm births from 2009 onwards.