Antenatal and early childhood exposures associated with non-fatal infant injury: evidence from a longitudinal birth cohort in New Zealand.

Objective: To identify antenatal and early childhood exposures of unintentional injury among infants in New Zealand (NZ).

Method: The theoretical life-course framework of child injury prevention domains was utilised to analyse data from a prospective longitudinal NZ birth cohort (Growing Up in NZ). Risk and protective factors for injury were identified using Robust Poisson regression models.

Result: Among children included for the analysis(n=6304), 52% were male, 55% were born to European mothers, and 37% lived in a household with high levels of deprivation. Mothers reported that 6% of infants (n=406) had sustained at least one injury by 9 months. Multivariate analysis showed injury risk among single mothers with antenatal depression were more than twice that (IRR=2.20) of children of mothers with partners and without depression.

Conclusion: Understanding antenatal risk and protective factors for infant injury will assist in implementing injury prevention programmes or modifying the existing policies that affect these vulnerable age groups.