Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research.
Stockholm University.
Popul Stud (Camb). 2020 Nov;74(3):363-378. doi: 10.1080/00324728.2020.1714701. Epub 2020 Feb 13.
A large body of research has shown that children born after especially short or long birth intervals experience an elevated risk of poor perinatal outcomes, but recent work suggests this may be explained by confounding by unobserved family characteristics. We use Swedish population data on cohorts born 1981-2010 and sibling fixed effects to examine whether the length of the birth interval preceding the index child influences the risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, and hospitalization during childhood. We also present analyses stratified by salient social characteristics, such as maternal educational level and maternal country of birth. We find few effects of birth intervals on our outcomes, except for very short intervals (less than seven months) and very long intervals (>60 months). We find few differences in the patterns by maternal educational level or maternal country of origin after stratifying by the mother's highest educational attainment.
大量研究表明，出生间隔特别短或特别长的儿童，其围产期结局不良的风险会增加，但最近的研究表明，这可能是由于未观察到的家庭特征造成的混杂因素导致的。我们利用瑞典 1981-2010 年出生队列的人群数据和兄弟姐妹固定效应，研究了前一个孩子的出生间隔长度是否会影响早产、低出生体重和儿童期住院的风险。我们还根据母亲的教育水平和母亲的出生国等显著的社会特征进行了分层分析。我们发现出生间隔对我们的结果影响很小，除了非常短的间隔（不到七个月）和非常长的间隔（超过 60 个月）。在按母亲的最高教育程度分层后，我们发现母亲的教育水平或母亲的原籍国对模式的影响差异很小。
