Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T19:19:35.644Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Birth size is not associated with depressive symptoms from adolescence to middle-age: results from the Northern Swedish Cohort study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2018

K. Rajaleid ,
U. Janlert ,
A. Hjern ,
H. Westerlund  and
A. Hammarström
K. Rajaleid*
Affiliation:
Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden Centre for Health Equity Studies, Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
U. Janlert
Affiliation:
Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Epidemiology and Global Health, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
A. Hjern
Affiliation:
Centre for Health Equity Studies, Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden Clinical Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
H. Westerlund
Affiliation:
Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
A. Hammarström
Affiliation:
Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
*
Address for correspondence: Kristiina Rajaleid, Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Low birth weight has been shown to be related to increased risk of depression later in life – but the evidence is not conclusive. We examined the association of size at birth with repeatedly measured depressive symptoms in 947 individuals from the Northern Swedish Cohort, a community-based age-homogeneous cohort born in 1965, and followed with questionnaires between ages 16 and 43 (participation rate above 90% in all the surveys). Information on birth size was retrieved from archived birth records. Length of gestation was known for a subsample of 512 individuals (54%). We studied the association of birth weight and ponderal index with self-reported depressive symptoms at ages 16, 21, 30 and 43; with the life-course average of depressive symptoms score and with longitudinal trajectories of depressive symptoms retrieved by latent class growth analysis. Socioeconomic background, mental illness or alcohol problems of a parent, exposure to social adversities in adolescence and prematurity were accounted for in the analyses. We did not find any relationship between weight or ponderal index at birth and our measure of depressive symptoms between ages 16 and 43 in a series of different analyses. Adjustment for length of gestation did not alter the results. We conclude that size at birth is not associated with later-life depressive symptoms score in this cohort born in the mid-1960s in Sweden. The time and context need to be taken into consideration in future studies.

Keywords

birth weightdepressive symptomsdevelopmental originslife-coursetrajectories
Type
Original Article
Information
Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , June 2019 , pp. 376 - 383
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press and the International Society for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Papachristou, E, Frangou, S, Reichenberg, A. Expanding conceptual frameworks: life course risk modelling for mental disorders. Psychiatry Res. 2013; 206, 140–145.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
2. Colman, I, Ataullahjan, A. Life course perspectives on the epidemiology of depression. Can J Psychiatry. 2010; 55, 622–632.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3. Wojcik, W, Lee, W, Colman, I, Hardy, R, Hotopf, M. Foetal origins of depression? A systematic review and meta-analysis of low birth weight and later depression. Psychol Med. 2013; 43, 1–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
4. Loret de Mola, C, de França, GV, Quevedo Lde, A, Horta, BL. Low birth weight, preterm birth and small for gestational age association with adult depression: systematic review and meta-analysis. Br J Psychiatry. 2014; 205, 340–347.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
5. Pariante, CM, Lightman, SL. The HPA axis in major depression: classical theories and new developments. Trends Neurosci. 2008; 31, 464–468.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
6. Miller, GE, Chen, E, Zhou, ES. If it goes up, must it come down? Chronic stress and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis in humans. Psychol Bull. 2007; 133, 25–45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
7. Colman, I, Ploubidis, GB, Wadsworth, ME, Jones, PB, Croudace, TJ. A longitudinal typology of symptoms of depression and anxiety over the life course. Biol Psychiatry. 2007; 62, 1265–1271.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
8. Alati, R, Lawlor, DA, Mamun, AA, et al. Is there a fetal origin of depression? Evidence from the Mater University Study of Pregnancy and its outcomes. Am J Epidemiol. 2007; 165, 575–582.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9. Herva, A, Pouta, A, Hakko, H, et al. Birth measures and depression at age 31 years: the Northern Finland 1966 birth cohort study. Psychiatry Res. 2008; 160, 263–270.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
10. Dahly, DL, Adair, LS, Bollen, KA. A structural equation model of the developmental origins of blood pressure. Int J Epidemiol. 2009; 38, 538–548.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
11. Wiles, NJ, Peters, TJ, Leon, DA, Lewis, G. Birth weight and psychological distress at age 45-51 years: results from the Aberdeen children of the 1950s cohort study. Br J Psychiatry. 2005; 187, 21–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
12. Gale, CR, Martyn, CN. Birth weight and later risk of depression in a national birth cohort. Br J Psychiatry. 2004; 184, 28–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13. Jung, T, Wickrama, KAS. An introduction to latent class growth analysis and growth mixture modeling. Soc Personal Psychol Compass. 2008; 2, 302–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14. Hammarström, A, Janlert, U. Cohort profile: the northern Swedish cohort. Int J Epidemiol. 2012; 41, 1545–1552.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
15. Hammarström, A, Westerlund, H, Kirves, K, et al. Addressing challenges of validity and internal consistency of mental health measures in a 27-year longitudinal cohort study—the Northern Swedish Cohort study. BMC Med Res Methodol. 2016; 16, 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16. Nagin, DS. Group-based modeling of development. 2005. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17. Muthen, LK, Muthen, BO. Mplus user’s guide. 2007. Muthen & Muthen: Los Angeles, CA.Google Scholar
18. Wickrama, KA, Conger, RD, Abraham, WT. Early family adversity, youth depressive symptom trajectories, and young adult socioeconomic attainment: a latent trajectory class analysis. Adv Life Course Res. 2008; 13, 161–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19. Nylund, KL, Asparouhov, T, Muthen, BO. Deciding on the number of classes in latent class analysis and growth mixture modeling: a Monte Carlo simulation study. Struct Equ Model. 2007; 14, 535–569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
20. Thompson, C, Syddall, H, Rodin, I, Osmond, C, Barker, DJ. Birth weight and the risk of depressive disorder in late life. Br J Psychiatry. 2001; 179, 450–455.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
21. Gustafsson, PE, Janlert, U, Theorell, T, Hammarström, A. Is body size at birth related to circadian salivary cortisol levels in adulthood? Results from a longitudinal cohort study. BMC Public Health. 2010; 10, 346.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
22. Gustafsson, PE, Janlert, U, Theorell, T, Westerlund, H, Hammarström, A. Fetal and life course origins of serum lipids in mid-adulthood: results from a prospective cohort study. BMC Public Health. 2010; 10, 484.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
23. Leino-Arjas, P, Rajaleid, K, Mekuria, G, et al. Trajectories of musculoskeletal pain from adolescence to middle age: the role of early depressive symptoms, a 27-year follow-up of the Northern Swedish Cohort. Pain. 2017 [Epub ahead of print].Google Scholar
24. Almquist, YB, Landstedt, E, Hammarström, A. Associations between social support and depressive symptoms: social causation or social selection-or both? Eur J Public Health. 2017; 27, 84–89.Google ScholarPubMed
25. Landstedt, E, Almquist, YB, Eriksson, M, Hammarström, A. Disentangling the directions of associations between structural social capital and mental health: longitudinal analyses of gender, civic engagement and depressive symptoms. Soc Sci Med. 2016; 163, 135–143.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
26. Mehio-Sibai, A, Feinleib, M, Sibai, TA, Armenian, HK. A positive or a negative confounding variable? A simple teaching aid for clinicians and students. Ann Epidemiol. 2005; 15, 421–423.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
27. Rothman, KJ, Gallacher, JE, Hatch, EE. Why representativeness should be avoided. Int J Epidemiol. 2013; 42, 1012–1014.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
28. Van Lieshout, RJ, Boyle, MH, Saigal, S, Morrison, K, Schmidt, LA. Mental health of extremely low birth weight survivors in their 30s. Pediatrics. 2015; 135, 452–459.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed