Optimal fetal growth: a misconception?

Fetal health stagnation: Have health conditions in utero improved in the United States and Western and Northern Europe over the past 150 years?

“…As mentioned above, it provides little information about the growth trajectory in utero. In addition, birth weight is most sensitive to poor conditions in the third trimester, but may be unaffected by health shocks earlier in the prenatal period (Roseboom et al, 2011 (Hanson et al, 2015).…”

“…Measuring fetal growth directly using ultrasound technology may help ameliorate this problem, but these measurements are not available historically. In addition, fetal growth (and especially weight gain) occurs mostly in the third trimester, so birth weight may not fully capture fetal health in the first and second trimester (Hanson et al, 2015;Roseboom et al, 2011;Wilcox, 2001). …”

The clinical significance of an estimated fetal weight below the 10th percentile: a comparison of outcomes of <5th vs 5th–9th percentile

“…321Doppler but for our first report we wanted to focus just on the link with SEFW and neonatal growth velocity and adverse outcomes 40,76 . We did not collect any data for fetuses324 with appropriate growth as a comparative group, which would have provided nuanced 325 knowledge of the morbidity and mortality with growth restriction.…”

“…1-16 SGA at birth has been defined as birth 75 below 25 th , 15 th , 10 th , 5 th , or 3 rd percentile for GA. [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] Notwithstanding the various thresholds 76 used to thus far, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and Society of Maternal- 77 Fetal Medicine characterize, suspected SGA as sonographic estimated fetal weight (SEFW) 78 <10 th percentile for gestational age (GA) and SGA, as birth weight below the 10 th percentile for 79 GA 25,26 . 80 Pregnancies with suspected SGA are at increased risk of fetal death, medically indicated 81 preterm birth, and cesarean delivery for non-reassuring fetal heart rate tracing 4, 7,9, 16, 27,28 .…”

The Benefits of Intervention: Birth Weights in Basle 1912-1920

“…Measuring early life health conditions is difficult and birth weight is not a problem free indicator (Schneider, 2014;Hanson et al, 2015). Nevertheless, it is a useful anthropometric measure to analyze women's living conditions and short-termed environmental impacts during pregnancy, because fetal development and a newborn's body size are highly affected by the nutritional status and the socio-economic background of the mother (Ward, 1993(Ward, , 1998Bogin, 1999;Roche and Sun, 2003;Ward, 2016).…”