Childhood neurological morbidity and its association with gestational age, intrauterine growth retardation and perinatal stress.

Data from 7-year-old children (n = 5363) enrolled prenatally during the 1960s in the Boston sector of the National Collaborative Perinatal Project (NCPP) have been used to study the associations of abnormal neurological findings at 7 years of age with gestational age, intrauterine growth-retardation (IUGR) and hypoxia-related perinatal stress. Among infants without perinatal stress, pre-term infants were at higher risk of abnormal neurological findings at 7 years than were term and post-term infants. IUGR infants, in the absence of stress, were not at any increased risk relative to non-IUGR infants. The odds ratio associated with perinatal stress increased with gestational age and was greater in the IUGR than in the non-IUGR infants.